IRLF 


SB 


LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


Class 


GIFT    OF 


Xs 


ADD1SON   W.   NAYLOR,   REBECCA   S.   NAYLOR 

AND    THEIR    DAUGHTER 

JESSIE  NAYLOR  COLE 


-1 Y/E  PUBLISH  THE  LETTERS  WRITTEN  HOME,  WHILE 
W  JOURNEYING  THROUGH  EGYPT,  PALESTINE  AND 
EUROPE,  WITH  THE  HOPE  THAT  THEY  MAY  BE  OF 
INTEREST  TO  THE  FRIENDS  WHOSE  KIND  REMEMBRANCES 
CHEERED  US  DURING  ALL  OUR  WANDERINGS,  AND 
WHOSE  WARM  WORDS  OF  WELCOME  GLADDENED  OUR 
HEARTS  UPON  OUR  RETURN  HOME  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  :: 


*yt 


PREFACE 


For  many  years  we  had  had  an  earnest  desire  to  visit 
Palestine,  so  on  the  i8th  of  February,  1911,  we  found  our- 
selves at  New  York,  where  we  joined  the  Dunning  Party. 
We  boarded  the  "Carmania"  and  started  on  our  long  voy- 
age to  Egypt  and  Palestine.  As  the  bugle  sounded  and  the 
cables  loosened,  we  pulled  out  from  the  shore  where  hun- 
dreds were  waving  farewell  to  dear  ones.  The  old  Stars 
and  Stripes  seemed  to  be  waving  their  goodbye  to  us  from 
the  New  York  harbor,  and  we  felt  that  it  was  no  light 
thing  to  leave  home  and  friends  and  native  land  to  wander 
on  a  foreign  strand,  but  we  found  as  our  party  gathered 
around  the  long  dining  table,  congenial  associates,  and  in- 
teresting traveling  companions. 

Our  Conductor  from  New  York  to  Cairo  was  Professor 
Huddleston  of  the  Maine  University.  At  Cairo  we  joined 
the  rest  of  our  party  and  Dr.  Albert  Bailey  of  Boston,  who 
was  our  very  efficient  Conductor  through  all  our  travels, 
returning  with  us  to  New  York. 

Our  twelve  days  at  Cairo  were  full  of  interest;  the 
strange  people,  strange  customs,  strange  looking  houses 
and  villages;  the  long  trains  of  camels,  the  strange,  mys- 
terious Nile  River,  the  Old  Sphinx,  the  Tombs,  the  Mosques 
and  minarets,  so  old  and  yet  so  new  to  us. 

As  we  traveled  over  the  land  of  Goshen  where  Joseph, 
Mary  and  the  baby  Jesus  came  when  fleeing  from  Herod; 
where  Abraham  and  Sarah  came  in  time  of  famine;  where 
the  noble  Joseph  rose  from  a  prison  to  a  palace  and  be- 
came ruler  over  all  the  land;  where  Moses  came  to  his 
wise  decision  to  serve  God  and  reject  the  pleasures  of  sin, 
how  real  all  these  incidents  of  Bible  history  seemed  to  us ! 
How  vividly  they  brought  to  our  minds  God's  care  of  His 
children  in  all  the  ages  of  the  world. 

The  weeks  we  spent  in  Palestine  were  crowded  full  of 
interest.  We  landed  at  Joppa,  immortalized  by  Peter  and 


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his  housetop  vision ;  by  the  faithful,  consecrated  Dorcas  and 
her  needle;  by  the  disobedient  Jonah  who  embarked  from 
this  place  upon  his  perilous  journey  to  Tarshish. 

We  spent  several  days  in  Jerusalem,  around  which  clus- 
ter so  many  things  of  Biblical  interest.  We  followed  the 
footsteps  of  our  Lord  from  Jerusalem  to  Galilee,  from 
Bethlehem  to  Calvary.  We  gathered  flowers  from  Geth- 
semane's  Garden;  sat  in  the  shade  of  the  olive  trees  on 
Olivet,  sat  down  upon  the  old  well  of  Samaria  where  Jesus 
sat  when  He  told  the  thirsty  woman  of  the  living  waters; 
drank  at  Mary's  Well  at  Nazareth ;  walked  about  the  village 
where  Jesus  walked  in  His  childhood  days.  We  looked 
upon  Carmel,  Hermon  and  old  Mount  Tabor,  supposed  to 
be  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration.  We  sailed  upon  the  beau- 
tiful water  of  Galilee,  walked  upon  its  shores  and  banks 
made  sacred  by  the  Saviour's  feet. 

We  followed  Paul  from  old  Damascus  where  he  began 
his  missionary  journeys,  to  old  Rome  where  he  finished 
his  work,  and  from  where  he  went  home  to  receive  his 
crown.  We  visited  the  old  cemetery  at  London  with  its 
moss-grown,  mildewed  monuments;  with  bowed  heads  and 
tearful  eyes  we  walked  around  the  graves  of  Susanna  and 
John  Wesley,  George  Fox  and  John  Bunyan,  and  in  the 
stillness  of  that  hottr  we  breathed  a  heart-felt  prayer  that 
the  Lord  would  help  us  to  serve  our  generation  as  faithfully 
as  they  had  served  theirs. 

After  all  these  months  of  wandering,  we  returned  to 
our  own  dear  America,  with  hearts  filled  with  gratitude  to 
Him  Who  had  preserved  our  going  out  and  our  coming  in ; 
thankful  that  He  has  given  us  a  greater  love  for  His  Word 
and  an  intense  desire  to  follow  more  closely  in  the  footsteps 
of  the  Man  of  Galilee. 

ADDISON  W.  NAYLOR 
REBECCA  S.  NAYLOR 
JESSIE  NAYLOR  COLE 

Berkeley,  California,  November  23,  1911 


New  York,  February  17,  1911 

We  feel  that  it  has  been  a  privilege  before  visiting  other 
lands,  to  have  again  first  traversed  our  own,  getting  a 
bird's-eye  view  for  comparison  with  the  foreign  countries 
we  shall  visit. 

We  left  San  Francisco  bay  at  night,  and  by  morning 
were  crossing  the  trackless  wastes  of  the  Mojave  desert. 
For  one  day  we  traversed  the  land  of  the  coyote  and  the  red 
man.  "Lo,  the  poor  Indian,"  is  showing  in  many  ways  the 
effects  of  civilization;  some  of  them  have  comfortable, 
square  stone  houses,  with  books,  shaded  lamps,  lace  cur- 
tains, etc.  The  men  take  care  of  the  babies  in  some  cases 
while  the  women  go  out  into  the  market-place, — which  is 
the  railroad  station, — to  sell  bead  work  and  gaudy  blankets 
to  the  tourists,  so  in  some  respects  they  have  even  gone  a 
step  in  advance  of  the  white  men  and  the  woman-suffragists. 
But  the  white  people  are  beginning  to  realize  the  possibil- 
ities of  this  seemingly  desert  land,  and  occasionally  we  saw 
the  shack  of  the  hardy  homeseeker.  If  our  government 
would  only  spend  on  this  productive  land  the  money  it  will 
spend  on  dreadnoughts  in  the  next  ten  years  how  many 
families  would  be  given  comfortable  farms,  and  what  an 
enormous  asset  would  be  added  to  the  nation. 

Now  we  come  to  the  prosperous  states  of  Colorado  and 
Kansas ;  the  land  of  corn  and  wheat.  Monotonous  in  their 
sameness  are  the  states  of  Missouri,  Indiana,  and  Ohio. 
Then  we  came  to  the  hills  and  finally  mountains,  and  found 
ourselves  in  historic  ground.  Occasionally  we  saw  the  old 
hewn-log  houses  of  the  pioneers  of  our  country,  some  of 
them  still  inhabited.  In  "Maryland,  My  Maryland/*  we 
crossed  the  river  at  Harper's  Ferry,  where  "John  Brown's 
body  lies  a  mouldering  in  the  grave." 

Soon  we  came  to  Washington,  the  city  of  a  thousand 
interests  to  the  patriotic  American.  We  went  to  the  Cap- 
itol and  sat  in  the  gallery  of  the  House,  listening  to  the 
debate  of  the  wise  men  concerning  Canadian  reciprocity. 


Across  the  park  is  the  Congressional  Library,  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  modern  buildings  in  the  world.  We  also 
saw  the  Departmental  buildings,  and  were  even  permitted 
a  glimpse  at  the  broad  back  of  our  honored  President.  An 
express  train  whirled  us  on  to  Philadelphia  for  a  short 
visit  with  relatives,  then  on  to  New  York,  whence  we  sail 
tomorrow,  on  the  Cunard  liner  Carmania.  It  is  not  with 
entire  joy  that  we  push  away  from  the  homeland,  but  we 
know  that  all  shall  be  well  with  us  and  with  our  dear  ones, 
for  we  have  had  a  promise  from  Him  in  whom  we  trust. 
"He  shall  preserve  thy  going  out  and  thy  coming  in." 

February  18th 

It  took  courage  to  stand  beside  the  gang-plank  and  see 
it  slowly  withdrawn,  realizing  all  the  time  that  it  was  the 
last  thread  that  bound  us  to  the  land  of  home  and  friends. 
It  was  really  the  hardest  moment  in  the  trip,  even,  leav- 
ing home  was  not  so  hard.  But  Mrs.  Underhill  and  Alice 
obtained  a  good  position  on  the  wharf,  waving  a  white  veil 
as  long  as  we  could  see.  One  who  has  not  had  the  same 
experience  could  never  guess  what  a  message  of  consola- 
tion and  good  cheer  that  white  spot  waved  by  a  friendly 
hand  was  to  us  as  we  passed  from  sight  of  land,  out  onto 
the  boundless  and  bounding  deep.  Then  we  went  to  our 
staterooms,  I  am  afraid  to  shed  a  few  tears,  but  the  pilot 
boat  had  brought  the  mail,  and  we  found  many  dear  home 
letters  awaiting  us,  and  we  forgot  to  cry.  Papa  found  his 
daily-remembrance  book  from  the  Sunday-school,  and  alter- 
nately read  and  wept  until  he  had  finished  it  all.  We  felt 
better  after  reading  these  messages  from  so  many  dear 
friends,  realizing  that  with  the  modern  conveniences  of 
mail  and  wireless,  we  cannot  get  far  apart  on  this  earth. 

We  sat  at  table  tonight  with  the  party  who  are  to  be 
our  companions  on  the  trip,  seventeen  in  all,  and  they 
seem  to  be  pleasant  people.  We  are  to  have  as  our  con- 
ductor as  far  as  Cairo,  where  we  meet  Mr.  Bailey,  Prof. 
Huddleston,  of  the  chair  of  Archaeology  of  Maine  Uni- 
versity. 


February  1 9th 

About  four  o'clock  this  morning  a  heavy  wind  came 
up  with  the  result  that  where  there  had  been  seventeen  at  our 
table  last  night  there  were  three  this  morning.  Papa  is 
as  white  as  a  sheet  and  has  to  lie  down  all  the  time  to  hold 
his  own.  Mama  is  taking  no  chances  and  stays  in  bed 
all  the  time,  so  I  am  the  only  member  of  the  family  on  deck. 
We  have  on  board  the  Lord  and  Lady  Decies,  formerly 
Vivien  Gould,  who  are  on  the  way  to  Cairo  to  spend  their 
honeymoon.  This  morning  there  was  a  Church  of  England 
service  on  board,  conducted  by  the  Captain.  They  have  a 
fine  choir  composed  of  some  of  the  stewards,  waiters  and 
crew,  and  they  make  excellent  music,  one  tenor  and  so- 
prano in  particular,  would  grace  any  city  church.  The  last 
part  was  written  especially  for  those  who  sail  the  seas,  and 
was  a  prayer  for  "those  we  have  left  in  our  homes,  the 
mothers  and  wives  and  babies,"  and  the  Captain's  voice  fal- 
tered as  he  read,  every  head  was  bowed  a  little  lower,  and 
many  a  horny  hand  wiped  away  a  tear — (and  some  that 
were  not  horny  did,  too).  They  have  a  good  band  on 
board,  or,  more  correctly  speaking,  an  orchestra,  a  fine 
pianist,  two  violins  and  a  bass  viol,  and  they  play  every 
afternoon  and  evening. 

February  20th 

We  saw  the  sun  for  the  first  time  this  morning  since 
we  started,  and  the  storm  seems  to  be  subsiding.  Papa  is 
still  sick,  and  I  had  to  fast  this  morning  in  order  to  main- 
tain my  reputation  for  a  good  sailor.  Her  Ladyship  was 
"en  retirement"  all  day  and  His  Lordship  stayed  out  among 
the  passengers  and  looked  awfully  lonesome  as  everyone 
was  afraid  to  speak  to  him. 

February  22nd 

I  have  missed  a  day,  you  observe,  and  the  cause  can 
easily  be  guessed.  About  two  o'clock  Tuesday  night  we 
ran  into  a  Sou-Wester  (it  deserves  to  be  capitalized)  ;  it 
was  entirely  too  windy  to  go  on  deck  by  morning  and  I 
guess  no  one  cared  to,  anyway.  Papa  was  terribly  sick, 
and  just  about  decided  that  he  would  never  reach  home 
alive.  I  was  in  what  Mama  called  a  state  of  indecision, 


but  I  never  lost  a  meal  though  I  missed  some.  In  the  after- 
noon the  storm  abated  some  and  I  went  up  on  deck.  The 
sea  presented  a  beautiful  sight,  the  deep  blue  waves  capped 
with  white  and  a  beautiful  green  where  the  ship  divided 
them,  the  wind  tossing  up  the  spray  from  the  wave  crests 
so  that  it  was  like  a  heavy  fog;  twice  spray  from  extra 
large  waves  dashed  clear  over  the  ship  and  came  down  in 
a  cloud  on  the  other  side.  Every  passenger  on  these  liners, 
I  suppose,  started  out  with  the  resolution  to  walk  a  mile 
a  day  which  is  seven  times  around  the  deck  of  this  vessel, 
and  it  is  certainly  amusing  to  see  the  determination  with 
which  some  do  it.  It  was  almost  impossible  to  keep  your 
feet,  yet  there  was  one  woe-begone  young  man  doggedly 
pacing  off  his  seven  turns ;  he  leaned  against  the  rail  from 
time  to  time  or  hung  over  it  as  necessity  arose  and  after 
staggering  around  the  last  time  disappeared  inside  the 
door  triumphantly  muttering  "seven."  Everyone  is  look- 
ing forward  with  much  pleasure  to  the  sight  of  land  to- 
morrow. We  shall  miss  seeing  the  Azores  as  they  are 
quarantined,  but  we  shall  all  be  at  Gibraltar  by  noon. 

February  27th 

How  I  wish  I  could  describe  to  you  the  scene  that 
lies  before  me  as  I  write.  We  are  lying  at  anchor  in  a 
beautifully  land-locked  bay  of  indigo-blue  water  much  like 
San  Diego  bay.  The  rock  of  Gibraltar  with  its  rugged 
precipitous  sides  lies  straight  before  us,  the  white  houses 
of  the  town  stretching  along  its  base  and  into  the  green 
fields  beyond.  Contrary  to  what  I  had  always  thought, 
the  perpendicular  face  of  the  rock,  the  one  so  familiar  to 
us  as  a  Prudential  Life  Insurance  advertisement,  is  on  the 
Mediterranean  side  so  that  you  must  go  through  the  straits 
to  reach  it.  Stretching  from  the  shore  up  over  the  farth- 
est mountain  is  a  chain  of  ancient  watch  towers,  the  farth- 
est one  being  called  Isabella's  Lamentation,  because  a 
Queen  sat  there  and  wept  in  1714  when  she  was  compelled 
to  give  up  Gibraltar  to  the  English,  who  have  held  it  ever 
since.  They  have  it  enormously  fortified ;  the  great  rock 
is  honeycombed  with  galleries  and  ammunition  magazines, 
and  pierced  frequently  by  holes  through  which  they  may 


project  the  mouth  of  cannon  in  time  of  war.  These  cannon 
were  mounted  here  at  enormous  expense  one  hundred  years 
ago,  and  are  now  perfectly  useless;  one  of  the  best  argu- 
ments I  know  of  for  disarmament.  England  is  estimated  to 
have  spent  in  fortification  of  this  rock  two  hundred  and 
fifty  million  dollars,  yet  many  English  statesmen  have  ad- 
vocated giving  it  back  to  Spain,  considering  it  absolutely 
useless  to  the  English. 

We  went  to  the  little  town  in  a  little  steam  tender 
and  took  a  three-hours'  drive  in  carriages  provided  by  the 
Dunning  Company  and  accompanied  by  a  native  guide. 
We  went  first  to  the  English  town  and  barracks  where  most 
of  the  population  are  the  families  of  soldiers  stationed  there, 
they  strut  around  the  town  in  bright  red  coats  and  blue 
pants,  invariably  carrying  a  ridiculous  little  cane.  Here  is 
a  beautiful  cemetery  in  which  are  buried  the  English  sol- 
diers killed  in  the  battle  of  Trafalgar  Bay;  beside  it  are 
the  Alameda  gardens,  where  you  could  easily  believe  you 
were  in  Golden  Gate  Park.  Pepper  trees,  acacia,  eucalyp- 
tus, orange,  and  many  kinds  of  flower  and  vining  geran- 
iums reminded  us  vividly  of  home.  We  saw  also  the  dry- 
docks,  ten  men-of-war  that  are  always  kept  in  the  harbor, 
and  two  big  guns  thirty-two  feet  long,  one  hundred  tons 
weight  and  throwing  a  two-hundred-pound  shell  eight 
miles. 

There  are  absolutely  no  wells  or  springs  in  the  town 
or  near,  and  they  depend  for  their  supply  on  an  enormous 
cistern  which  contains  water  enough  for  five  years.  This 
town  is  walled,  and  now  they  took  us  through  a  gate  and 
across  a  strip  of  neutral  ground  to  Spanish  territory  and 
the  city  of  Linae  of  31,000  inhabitants.  Arab,  Moor, 
Bedouin,  Spanish  and  all  sorts  of  mixtures;  and  not  a 
sewer  or  sanitary  arrangement  in  the  place.  It  was  car- 
nival day  and  we  got  to  see  a  regular  Spanish  festival 
minus  the  bull  fight.  The  season  for  this  inhuman  sport 
does  not  begin  until  Palm  Sunday.  There  are  certainly  a 
large  number  of  very  pretty  girls,  but  no  pretty  young 
married  women  or  middle-aged;  as  Mr.  Hart  says  they 
seem  to  jump  from  pretty  girlhood  to  ugly  old  age.  There 
are  droves  of  children,  for  the  most  part  comfortably,  but 


not  gaudily  dressed;  many  of  them  camped  right  at  our 
heels  with  "Penny,  lady;  penny,  lady,"  which  was  all  the 
English  they  knew.  I  wished  they  knew  what  "scoot" 
meant,  and  suspicion  they  did,  but  did  not  want  to  let  on. 
We  happened  on  a  funeral  procession  composed  of  a  hearse 
with  a  rabble  of  men  walking  behind;  the  women  are  not 
allowed  to  go. 

February  28th 

Today  many  of  our  crowd  went  to  shore  to  purchase 
drawn-work  and  Maltese  lace,  which  are  the  specialties  of 
this  port.  All  day  long  men  have  been  coming  out  in  small 
rowboats  to  sell  fish,  oranges,  dates,  etc.,  and  one  boy  had 
live  devilfish  with  tentacles  about  two  feet  long,  a  hideous 
looking  thing,  but  said  to  be  a  great  delicacy. 

March  2nd 

After  a  violent  storm  on  the  Mediterranean,  much 
worse  than  any  other  we  have  so  far  experienced,  we  came  to 
Algiers  on  the  African  coast,  a  town  of  38,000  population, 
belonging  to  the  French,  who  are  gradually  crowding  out 
the  native  Arab  inhabitants.  The  two  sections  of  the  city 
are  as  different  as  a  modern  civilized  city  and  a  heathen 
village.  The  French  have  a  beautiful  city  with  seven  or 
eight-storied  stone  buildings,  street  cars,  electric  lights, 
sewers,  fine  parks,  and  the  hillside  dotted  with  elaborate 
villas  and  gardens.  Here  also  we  saw  the  Algiers  museum, 
which  has  only  one  claim  to  fame,  as  far  as  we  could  find 
out,  a  plaster  cast  of  Geronimo,  who  was  a  Spanish  mis- 
sionary here  in  1569,  and  was  put  alive  into  a  block  of  con- 
crete which  was  then  built  into  the  wall  of  a  fort.  This 
story  was  not  believed,  the  people  thinking  it  was  only 
a  monkish  tale.  But  about  sixty  years  ago  the  fort  was  torn 
down  and  the  block  on  being  split  open  showed  the  perfect 
mould  of  Geronimo's  body.  Plaster  of  paris  was  poured 
into  this  and  the  cast  thus  made  is  on  exhibition  here.  The 
cord  running  down  the  neck  appears  to  be  drawn  and  en- 
larged from  the  agony  of  the  face  which  is  plainly  visible. 

From  this  quarter  we  hired  a  guide  and  went  into  the 
Arab  quarter.  Chinatown  as  it  existed  in  San  Francisco 

10 


before  the  fire  was  an  Elysian  garden  to  this.  The  streets 
about  three  feet  wide,  and  their  location  on  a  steep  hillside 
is  certainly  all  that  saves  the  inhabitants  from  constant 
sickness.  As  it  is,  the  sewage  runs  down  the  middle  of 
the  street  and  into  the  bay.  There  are  droves  of  men  and 
children  everywhere,  but  few  women  to  be  seen.  The 
children  are  a  pest,  following  you  everywhere  and  begging. 
If  you  give  them  anything  you  are  worse  treated  than  if 
you  do  not,  for  once  they  spot  you  for  an  "easy-mark,"  then 
woe  betide  you.  We  went  into  a  cathedral  of  the  Greek 
church  during  service,  and  they  had  a  magnificent  organ 
and  men's  choir,  in  fact  the  ceremony  seemed  much  like 
the  high  mass  of  the  Catholic  church,  and  the  place  of 
prominence  in  the  church  was  held  by  a  statue  of  Christ 
on  the  cross.  From  this  we  went  to  a  mosque  where  we 
must  don  slippers  before  we  enter  for  fear  our  heathen 
feet  might  contaminate  the  holiness  of  this  temple  of  Mo- 
hammed. We  also  visited  the  summer  and  winter  pal- 
aces of  the  Governor,  luxurious  and  showy,  but  un-home- 
like  except  for  the  beautiful  gardens.  On  a  hill-top  as  we 
came  down  was  gathered  a  lot  of  Mohammedans,  having 
some  kind  of  a  ceremony.  They  were  all  squatted  in  a 
circle  around  what  I  suppose  they  call  a  band,  three  men 
blowing  furiously  on  reeds  of  various  sizes  and  tones,  each 
having  as  many  as  two  notes  which  each  man  played  at 
will,  regardless  of  the  harmony.  At  the  same  time  a  large 
man  in  robes  and  turban  was  chanting  in  a  monotone  more 
or  less  varied  in  loudness,  and  the  result  can  easily  be 
imagined.  They  immediately  stopped  proceedings  when 
we  arrived  and  took  up  a  collection  from  the  "Anglais." 

March  3rd 

Well,  we  did  not  "break  the  bank  at  Monte  Carlo,"  but 
preachers,  Sunday  school  superintendents  and  all,  we  have 
set  foot  on  the  wickedest  spot  in  the  world,  and  have 
watched  its  endless  "roulette."  After  a  pleasant  sail  across 
the  Mediterranean  (we  have  concluded  since  the  storms  we 
encountered  here  that  we  were  mistaken  in  calling  the 
other  "winds"  we  have  had  "storms")  we  came  at  last  to 
"terra  firma"  in  sunny  France,  at  Nice,  a  typical  French 

11 


city  of  40,000  inhabitants,  clean,  well  laid  out;  with  very 
thrifty-appearing  "shops."  Here  we  engaged  automobiles, 
and  went  in  the  famous  Riviera  drive  leading  to  Monte 
Carlo.  The  road  for  the  whole  distance  of  nine  miles  is 
finely  paved,  and  being  on  a  mountain  side,  must  have  been 
built  and  maintained  at  enormous  expense,  probably  by 
the  principality  of  Monaco,  which  owns  and  controls  Monte 
Carlo.  Evidences  of  tireless  industry  are  on  every  hand, 
and  the  farm  buildings  were  so  trim  and  clean!  No  hill- 
side is  too  steep  for  the  Frenchman  to  farm,  they  take  one 
covered  with  stones  and  carry  the  stones  to  make  walls 
which  they  fill  in  with  dirt  and  fertilizer,  and  on  these  ter- 
races they  have  orange  trees,  olives  and  vegetables.  Above 
these  farms  are  jagged  bluffs  of  solid  rock,  and  beyond 
them  snow-clad  peaks.  On  the  other  side  below  these  ter- 
raced farms  is  the  blue  ocean,  and  over  all  the  clear  blue 
sky.  No  wonder  they  call  it  "La  Belle  France!"  And  it 
is  no  wonder  that  foreigners  that  can  do  so  much  with  no 
soil  can  get  rich  on  American  farms. 

Through  such  scenery  as  this  we  came  to  Mentone,  a 
little  gem  of  a  city  beside  the  sea.  Here,  in  a  palm-garden 
on  the  beach,  we  ate  dinner,  the  chief  ingredients  of  which 
were  excellently  cooked  meat  and  tremendously  mildewed 
cheese,  then  we  went  on  to  Monte  Carlo,  which  is  a  sub- 
urb of  Mentone.  The  first  thing  we  remarked  is  the  beauty 
of  the  flowers,  set  out  in  plots  and  well  cared  for,  but  our 
attention  was  soon  directed  to  the  people  that  are  throng- 
ing into  the  white  granite  building  on  the  left.  I  never 
have  seen  so  much  style  to  the  square  inch.  We  went,  or 
rather  our  conductor  went  to  the  hotel  Metropole,  signed 
the  register  with  the  name  and  address  of  each  one,  and 
thus  obtained  a  permit  for  us  to  enter  the  gambling  places. 
Once  inside  the  Casino  we  were  sent  to  a  cloak  room 
where  we  were  ordered  to  lay  aside  all  wraps,  cameras, 
canes,  etc.  Then  we  were  allowed  to  enter  the  main  hall,  a 
lofty  place  of  Carrara  marble  pillars,  inlaid  floors,  and  dec- 
orated with  the  finest  paintings.  Here  are  many  tables  each 
surrounded  by  a  crowd,  some  gambling,  others  only  look- 
ing on.  I  am  not  gambler  enough  to  be  able  to  describe  the 
game,  but  two  things  very  strongly  impressed  me. 

12 


First,  there  were  more  women  than  men  playing;  second, 
the  exceedingly  hard,  impassive  faces  of  the  men  in  charge 
of  the  tables.  They  certainly  look  like  the  master  they 
serve,  I  suppose  they  have  to  be  destitute  of  feeling  to  be 
a  success  in  this  business.  It  was  really  a  pleasure  to  get 
outside  and  breathe  God's  free  air  again.  It  was  unpleas- 
ant to  see  so  many  taking  the  short-cut  to  their  fate  in 
the  hereafter.  From  here  we  returned  to  Villefranche  by 
the  Lower  Road,  just  as  good  as  the  Cornish,  but  more 
direct  and  following  the  beach.  Certainly  a  mixed  day  and 
such  we  seem  to  have  in  these  Mediterranean  countries, 
at  one  moment  much  to  admire  of  God's  beautiful  handi- 
work, and  the  work  of  Christian  countries,  in  the  next 
moment  seeing  the  most  flagrant  exhibition  of  man's  de- 
pravity. 

Naples*  March  5th 

We  came  through  the  beautiful  blue  waters  of  the 
Mediteranean,  which  was  behaving  itself,  from  Villefranche 
to  Naples,  following  the  shore  quite  closely  so  that  we 
could  see  the  thrifty,  terraced  farms.  I  was  disappointed 
in  the  Bay  of  Naples,  I  had  always  heard  it  compared  to 
San  Diego  Bay,  but  I  think  the  latter  has  the  advantage. 
Naples  has  for  years  been  known  as  the  paradise  of  beg- 
gars, but  the  authorities  are  trying  very  hard  now  to  stamp 
them  out.  Some  almost  naked  boys  came  out  in  boats  to 
dive  for  money,  but  a  patrol  boat  came  and  drove  them 
away,  and  we  were  not  bothered  here  as  much  as  in  Al- 
giers. We  heard  one  expression  here  that  fits  many  things 
in  these  Oriental  countries.  An  Italian  trying  to  sell  us 
violets  said  in  his  broken  English  that  they  were  "very 
smell,  very  smell."  Here  we  had  to  call  on  the  police 
to  rid  ourselves  of  the  driver,  who  insisted  on  more  pay 
than  our  conductor  had  agreed  to  give  him.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve an  Italian  could  talk  if  you  were  to  cut  off  his  arms, 
this  one  yelled  and  gesticulated  with  his  arms  until  we  were 
almost  afraid  he  was  going  to  kill  someone.  But  it  is  only 
their  way.  This  cabman  had  spent  five  years  in  New  York, 
but  we  saw  no  evidence  of  its  "civilizing  influence"  on  him. 
Naples  is  a  clean  city  as  a  whole  and  the  most  noticeable 

13 


thing  about  it  is  the  statuary.  They  seem  to  have  it  every- 
where, even  making  niches  in  the  business  blocks  for 
images  of  Dante,  Homer,  Macauley,  and  everybody  imag- 
inable. Here,  also,  for  the  first  time  we  saw  frequent 
shrines  at  the  corners  of  the  walls,  mostly  statues  of  the 
Virgin  Mary,  behind  banks  of  flowers  and  lighted  tapers. 

March  6th 

We  slept  last  night  in  the  shadow  of  Vesuvius,  which 
is  not  smoking  much,  but  when  we  came  shortly  to  Strom- 
boli  we  saw  a  "really,  truly  volcano,"  great  clouds  of  smoke 
coming  from  it  and  rising  like  the  pillar  of  fire  that  led  the 
Israelites.  Instead  of  going  straight  across  the  Mediter- 
ranean we  go  along  the  coast  of  Italy  and  through  the 
Straits  of  Messina,  where  the  earthquake  wrought  so  much 
damage  two  years  ago.  The  straits,  which  are  only  two 
miles  wide,  separate  Italy  and  Sicily.  The  latter  is  one 
of  the  most  thickly  populated  countries  in  the  world,  hav- 
ing two  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  on  the  small  island, 
so  that  it  is  entirely  covered  with  small  and  fertile  farms. 
Messina  was  the  only  city  and  was  very  badly  wrecked  by 
the  earthquake.  Across  the  straits  Reggio  was  just  as 
badly  destroyed.  Messina  was  supposed  to  be  the  oldest 
city  in  Europe,  having  been  founded  by  Greek  colonists 
five  or  six  centuries  before  Christ.  Also  Syracuse  was 
founded  shortly  after  and  has  today  the  largest  Greek 
theater  in  preservation.  On  this  island  can  be  found  more 
well-preserved  samples  of  Doric  architecture  and  temples 
than  in  any  other  place  in  the  world.  We  are  just  revers- 
ing the  route  that  Paul  took  when  he  was  taken  a  prisoner 
to  Rome  (Acts  2/th  chapter).  The  Syracuse  spoken  of 
there  was  the  same  and  Reggio  is  the  same  as  Reghyum. 
We  passed  Crete,  and  Melita  is  the  only  place  we  have 
missed.  We  saw  Mount  Aetna,  the  highest  mountain 
in  view  and  snow-clad  except  at  the  crater.  The 
smoke  arising  from  it  was  white  and  very  hard  to  discern. 
Stromboli  is  the  best  smoker  of  the  lot.  We  should  have 
been  in  Alexandria  tomorrow  morning  but  something  hap- 
pened to  the  engines  so  we  can  only  go  at  half  speed  and 
will  not  arrive  there  until  Thursday  morning. 

14 


March  8th 

Today  has  certainly  been  a  strenuous  one.  We  got  up 
at  six  o'clock  so  as  to  breakfast  at  seven  on  the  boat,  land 
and  catch  the  express  train  for  Cairo  at  nine  o'clock.  I 
must  tell  you  about  our  passing  quarantine.  They  blew 
the  bugle  for  all  first-class  passengers  to  assemble  in  the 
dining  room.  Then  an  Arab  doctor  stationed  himself  at 
the  door  and  as  a  steward  called  our  names  we  went  up  to 
the  doctor  who  felt  our  pulses  and  looked  very  searchingly 
into  our  faces.  Then  we  passed  out.  All  the  crew  of  four 
hundred  men  had  to  go  through  the  same  inspection  and 
we  got  a  clean  bill  of  health.  Finally  we  were  ashore  and 
aboard  the  funniest  little  train.  First  was  the  engine,  not 
as  big  as  our  yard  engines ;  then  a  baggage  car  followed  by 
the  first-class  coaches  (no  cars,  not  even  freight  <:ars, 
are  more  than  twenty-four  feet  long)  which  are  divided 
into  four  compartments  holding  six  each,  very  comfortable 
and  upholstered  in  leather.  Next  the  second-class  coaches 
like  our  Southern  Pacific  coaches  only  smaller;  then  "cattle 
cars"  with  lengthwise  seats  for  the  third-class,  in  this  case 
mostly  Arabs.  We  saw  some  cattle  in  ordinary  freight 
cars  and  each  car  held  six  cows.  That  ride  from  Cairo  to 
Alexandria  was  certainly  memorable  and  interesting,  so  dif- 
ferent from  anything  we  had  ever  seen.  In  one  group  we 
saw  a  donkey  loaded  till  you  could  hardly  see  him,  a  camel 
also  heavily  loaded,  a  wagon,  and  a  woman  carrying  a  load 
of  sugar  cane  larger  than  herself.  It  is  a  beautiful  green 
fertile  looking  country  as  far  as  the  overflow  of  the  Nile 
reaches,  but  a  sudden  and  very  well  defined  line  marks  the 
division  of  desert  and  green  fields.  Mud  villages,  which 
can  be  deserted  without  much  loss  when  the  Nile  over- 
flows, line  the  track  and  it  is  pleasant  to  see  finally  the  stone 
buildings  and  lofty  minarets  of  Cairo.  Here  we  stop  at 
Shepheards  Hotel,  which  for  fifty  years  has  been  the  swell 
tourist  hotel  of  Egypt.  Here  we  met  the  party  which  had 
spent  thirty  days  in  Egypt,  and  Mr.  Bailey,  who  had  been 
their  conductor  and  is  to  be  ours  for  the  rest  of  the  trip. 
All  of  us  like  him  and  anticipate  a  pleasant  and  profitable 
trip  under  his  guidance.  For  a  native  guide  or  dragoman, 


15 


as  they  are  called,  we  have  Machmud,  a  delightfully  dig- 
nified, serene-looking  Mohammedan. 

March  9th 

Our  first  afternoon  in  Cairo  was  spent  in  visiting 
mosques.  We  saw  first  that  of  Ibm  Toulun,  not  nearly  so 
ornate  as  some  but  more  noteworthy  because  it  contains  the 
first  use  of  the  horse-shoe  arch  which  is  so  popular  with 
the  Egyptians.  Its  pillars  are  built  of  brick  covered  with 
stucco.  The  view  from  the  top  of  its  minaret  gave  us  a 
splendid  idea  of  the  city.  To  the  right  were  low  hills  called 
the  Macadam  hills,  from  which  rise  the  domes  of  the  tombs 
of  the  Caliphs.  This  was  originally  a  school  mosque  and 
very  much  resembled  the  old  missions  of  California  with 
its  court  and  colonnade.  Every  mosque  has  its  Mecca 
niche,  more  or  less  elaborate,  pointing  out  to  the  worship- 
pers the  East,  for  they  must  always  pray  with  their  faces  in 
that  direction.  The  next  mosque  was  that  of  Ali  Hassan, 
which  was  never  completed  because  after  his  death  his 
family  refused  to  furnish  the  necessary  funds.  It  was  built 
in  the  shape  of  a  cross,  for  by  this  time  the  Mohammedans 
were  divided  into  four  sects  and  each  had  an  arm  of  the 
mosque  to  worship  in.  The  third  was  the  mosque  of  Mo- 
hammed Ali  and  his  son,  Mohammed  Ibraham.  When 
Napoleon  was  asked  to  select  a  strong  Sultan  to  rule  Egypt, 
he  proved  his  ability  to  properly  judge  men  by  choosing 
a  young  officer  of  the  Mameluke  regiment,  a  company  of 
the  earliest  Christians.  This  Pasha,  Mohammed  Ali,  be- 
came one  of  the  strongest  rulers  Egypt  has  had,  and  he 
was  ahead  of  his  generation  in  many  ways  and  began  a 
system  of  public  schools.  He  built  this  fine  mosque  and 
on  its  walls  is  a  fine  bronze  tower  sent  from  France  by 
Napoleon  as  a  gift,  but  looking  strangely  out  of  place  amid 
this  Arabian  stolidity.  This  mosque  is  still  used,  although 
not  as  a  school  mosque  as  was  originally  intended,  and  its 
lofty  dome  is  on  a  magnificent  scale  of  beauty  and  grandeur, 
being  very  ornately  decorated  with  leaf  gold.  The  main 
floor,  walls  and  pillars  are  all  of  the  most  resplendent  ala- 
baster which  is  a  kind  of  white  granite  that  takes  on  the 
softest  brown  tones  with  age.  Mohammed  Ali  and  his  son, 

16 


u   z 

CO      Cfi 
U]     Q 


O    £ 
U    r* 

z   ^ 


Mahpmmed  Ibraham,  the  greatest  general  that  Egypt  has 
produced,  are  both  buried  here.  The  memorial  or  burial 
mosque  can  be  distinguished  by  the  large  round  dome 
which  always  surmounts  the  burial  place.  This  mosque 
is  inside  the  old  citadel  which  overlooked  the  city  and 
was  a  point  of  vantage  to  control  or  defend  it.  Here  is 
where  the  famous  Mameluke  massacre  took  place.  Mo- 
hammed AH  after  his  accession  to  power  put  into  high 
places  his  Mameluke  friends,  so  that  the  regiment  or  tribe 
became  very  influential,  so  powerful  in  fact  that  Ali  began 
to  fear  them.  So  after  he  was  firmly  seated  he  began 
to  plan  for  their  downfall.  One  night  he  invited  them  to 
a  splendid  feast.  Four  hundred  of  them  were  inside  of 
the  citadel  and  after  they  had  wined  and  dined  they  started 
to  depart.  They  mounted  their  horses  and  on  trying  to  go 
through  the  narrow  passage  to  the  outer  gate  found  the  latter 
locked  and  when  they  turned  back  the  inner  gate  was  also 
locked.  Immediately  soldiers  began  firing  on  them  from 
the  walls  above  and  everyone  was  killed.  Just  outside  the 
walls  of  this  citadel  is  a  fragment  of  the  old  Saladin  wall, 
a  wall  of  sun-dried  mud  brick  made  by  some  of  the  proud- 
est nobles  of  Europe  when  they  were  in  captivity  during 
the  Crusades. 

March  I  Oth 

Today  we  went  out  to  see  the  far-famed  Pyramids 
with  which  everyone  is  familiar.  They  are  somewhat  more 
mutilated  than  the  pictures  of  them  indicate.  Any  Pasha 
who  wished  to  build  a  mosque  considered  these  pyramids 
lawful  plunder,  and  they  have  all  been  stripped  of  their 
covering  of  great  granite  blocks,  and  the  softer  limestone 
left  exposed.  Many  of  the  smaller  pyramids  thus  left  ex- 
posed to  the  elements  are  being  rapidly  obliterated.  Cheops, 
the  largest  one,  was  built  about  2800  B.  C.  and  covered 
at  that  time  seventeen  acres  of  ground.  It  is  built  on  the 
solid  rock  and  there  is  yet  in  the  center  a  place  where  the 
architect  had  drilled  one  hundred  feet  into  the  rock  to  dis- 
cover if  this  was  a  suitable  foundation  for  so  great  a  weight. 
The  kings  of  Egypt  had  discovered  that  in  spite  of  the  pre- 
cautions taken  by  their  forerunners,  their  tombs  were  des- 

17 


ecrated,  so  they  determined  that  their  own  sarcophagi 
should  be  safely  housed.  Accordingly  they  built  these 
great  pyramids  and  after  the  body  was  put  in,  the  passage 
to  the  outside  was  sealed  up  so  that  no  one  could  tell  from 
the  exterior  where  to  begin  to  search  for  the  passage. 
Ryder  Haggard's  "Cleopatra"  gives  the  best  description  of 
the  interior  of  these  pyramids,  the  one  of  which  Haggard 
speaks  is  the  smallest  of  this  group,  but  the  oldest.  We 
could  not  but  wonder  how  these  enormous  blocks  could 
have  been  brought  here  by  those  old  Egyptians.  Many  of 
them  weigh  twenty  tons  and  were  brought  from  seventy 
miles  up  the  river  on  rafts,  and  pulled  up  to  the  pyramids, 
three  miles  from  the  Nile  on  giant  causeways  of  rock,  the 
building  of  which  was  the  first  step  toward  the  erection  of 
a  pyramid.  It  is  said  to  have  taken  twenty  thousand  men 
ten  years  to  build  one  causeway.  The  pyramids  are  three 
miles  from  Cairo  and  are  reached  by  electric  car  or  car- 
riage on  a  broad  tree-lined  boulevard.  This  road  has  an 
interesting  history.  Michael  Pasha  was  notified  that  the 
Empress  Eugenia  was  to  pay  him  a  visit,  and  the  only  way 
to  get  to  the  large  pyramids  which  he  was  particularly 
anxious  to  show  her  was  by  camel  back.  So  he  con- 
scripted one  hundred  men  and  in  three  weeks  they  had 
built  this  splendid  road  that  Eugenia  might  ride  in  com- 
fort, and  certainly  all  tourists  today  owe  them  a  debt  of 
gratitude  for  the  unusually  comfortable  road. 

Each  of  these  pyramids  had  connected  with  it  a  tem- 
ple, but  only  one  of  these  is  preserved,  that  of  Kepphren, 
or  the  second  one.  This  is  very  impressive  in  the  grandeur 
of  simple  hewn-granite  pillars  and  alabaster  floors.  Here 
the  twelve  statues  of  Kepphren  were  found  in  a  well, 
where  they  had  been  thrown  by  some  pillaging  band  who 
had  first  broken  most  of  them.  On  our  first  visit  the 
Sphinx  was  a  great  disappointment  to  us.  While  it  is  only 
ten  minutes'  walk  from  the  first  pyramid,  you  get  within 
two  hundred  yards  or  so  of  it  before  you  see  it.  It  would 
be  absolutely  covered  with  sand  had  it  not  been  excavated 
many  times,  for  the  top  is  but  very  little  above  the  level 
of  the  surrounding  country,  but  the  sand  is  dug  out  around 
it  so  that  the  shoulders  and  head  are  visible.  Beneath  the 


sand  are  the  great  paws  (the  Sphinx  is  the  body  of  a  lion 
and  the  head  of  a  man)  twenty  feet  long,  and  the  temple 
is  between  them.  The  figure  is  smaller  than  I  had  ex- 
pected, and  had  been  used  as  a  target  by  the  Mamelukes 
so  that  the  nose  and  beard  are  missing  and  the  face  very 
much  mutilated,  and  I  could  not  discover  much  of  the 
"expression  of  mystery"  generally  reputed  to  this  figure. 
But  on  Sunday  evening  we  went  to  eat  lunch  by  moonlight 
and  sit  for  a  while  with  these  wonders  of  the  past  and  I 
could  never  tell  what  an  impression  this  great  man-animal 
made  on  all  of  us  as  we  saw  it  then.  The  only  definite 
record  of  any  kind  that  we  have  of  it  is  a  metal  tablet  be- 
tween the  paws  and  now  below  the  sand,  on  which  it  says : 
"I,  Thothmes  fourth,  was  one  day  resting  beside  this  great 
riddle — "  showing  that  even  in  1800  or  2000  B.  C.  this  great 
Sphinx  was  here  and  even  then  a  mystery.  The  moonlight 
casts  a  romantic  halo  about  it  and  obscures  the  disfigure- 
ment of  the  face,  and  the  expression  of  ineffable  longing 
becomes  plainer.  This  seems  to  mean  something  different 
to  each  one  who  sees  it,  but  to  me  it  seemed  to  be  a  reach- 
ing out  after  that  which  the  Egyptians  so  long  had  sought, 
an  adequate  God  that  could  promise  them  absolutely  eter- 
nal life. 

This  afternoon  we  had  what  was  to  me  the  most  inter- 
esting time  of  our  trip  so  far.  We  have  been  seeing  the  de- 
graded Egyptians  of  today,  but  now  we  went  arid  dwelt  for 
a  time  with  the  lordly  Egyptians  of  three  or  four  thousand 
years  ago.  Up  to  seven  years  ago,  any  antiquities  dug  up 
were  taken  away  by  whoever  found  them,  but  at  that  time, 
under  the  influence  of  a  famous  French  scholar  named 
Mariette,  the  Egyptian  museum  was  started  in  Cairo,  and 
all  things  excavated  must  be  brought  here  and  can  only 
be  sold  on  the  consent  of  the  government.  So  they  have 
gathered  here  a  very  valuable  collection.  It  means  a  great 
deal  to  have  with  you  a  man  who' can  interpret  these  things 
properly  and  enthusiastically,  and  we  have  such  a  one  in 
Prof.  Bailey,  so  when  I  impart  to  you  an  astonishing 
amount  of  knowledge  I  do  not  deserve  the  credit,  as  much 
I  write  is  taken  from  his  lectures. 

All  Egyptian  art  as  well  as  much  of  the  more  modern 

19 


art  hinges  on  a  desire  to  obtain  immortality,  the  difference 
between  Egyptian  and  Grecian  art  being  that  the  first  was 
an  attempt  to  immortalize  man,  the  second  to  make  eternal 
their  conceptions  of  gods,  so  that  the  Egyptian  art  is  literal 
at  the  expense  of  the  beautiful,  while  the  Grecian  is  graceful 
and  lithe  often  at  the  expense  of  the  literal.  The  early 
Egyptians  of  4000  years  B.  C.  had  a  great  longing  for  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  so  those  that  could  afford  it  conceived 
the  idea  of  putting  the  body  into  stone  coffins  and  sealing 
them  up,  thus  hoping  to  overcome  decay.  Then  they  came 
to  believe  in  a  spirit  in  the  body  which  needed  sustenance 
so  they  began  to  paint  symbols  and  make  the  sarcophagi 
in  the  form  of  a  house,  with  windows  sculptured  on  the 
side,  and  a  door  so  that  the  spirit  could  go  in  and  out  at 
will.  A  libation  table  was  just  outside  on  which  the  sons  of 
descendants  of  the  deceased  were  supposed  to  keep  eatables 
for  the  spirit.  But  they  soon  found  that  these  things  were 
not  consumed  so  they  merely  painted  pictures  of  the  need- 
ful things  on  the  interior  walls  of  the  tomb,  and  began  to 
build  them  with  several  rooms  where  the  spirit  could  roam 
at  will.  These  were  called  Mastabas,  and  on  their  walls 
we  have  complete  reproductions  of  the  way  of  obtaining 
and  preparing  food;  we  see  the  oxen  being  lassoed,  killed 
and  cut  up;  the  process  of  sowing  and  reaping  wheat,  the 
idea  being  that  all  things  the  man  would  want  in  spirit 
land  must  be  represented.  Soon  the  richer  Egyptians  began 
to  have  these  images  cut  into  the  walls  and  this  is  the  first 
beginning  of  sculpture.  They  represented  things  in  size 
according  to  their  importance,  the  master  is  always  large, 
the  wife  about  up  to  his  knees,  and  the  servants  much  more 
insignificant.  They  considered  the  profile  to  be  the  most 
important  aspect  of  the  face  so  presented  it  that  way,  but 
a  front  view  of  the  eye  was  important  so  with  no  idea 
apparently  of  the  incongruity,  they  put  the  front  view  of 
the  eye  into  the  side  view  of  the  face.  Breadth  of  chest 
and  shoulder  were  a  sign  of  strength  so  they  attached  a 
front  view  of  the  chest  to  this  side  view  of  the  face.  But 
at  the  waist  their  ideas  changed  again  and  since  breadth  of 
thigh  was  desirable  they  unceremoniously  twisted  the  man 
and  presented  a  side  view  of  his  legs.  And  the  thumbs  and 

20 


great  toe  are  always  on  the  same  side  of  hand  or  foot.  The 
prevailing  characteristic  of  the  Egyptian  then  as  now  seems 
to  have  been  adherence  to  ancient  traditions  and  customs, 
so  this  type  of  picture  was  always  the  proper  one  for  grave 
pictures.  When  they  were  painting  something  ordinary 
on  which  they  were  free  to  show  their  own  tastes  they  did 
wonderfully  well,  as  in  the  earliest  known  example  of  oil 
painting,  which  we  saw  here.  It  is  of  geese  and  is  very 
lifelike. 

But  now  these  old  eternal-life  seekers  went  one  step 
farther  and  began  to  worship  Osiris,  the  god  of  life,  and 
they  believed  in  the  reincarnation  of  the  soul.  So  they 
thought  necessary  to  provide  an  image  of  the  body  for  the 
soul  to  re-enter,  and  spent  much  money  in  hiring  sculptors. 
According  as  they  were  able  they  provided  two  or  three  of 
these  so  that  if  one  were  lost  or  broken  there  would  still  be 
a  perfect  image  left  for  the  spirit  to  enter.  At  first  they 
were  made  of  wood,  and  the  one  in  the  museum  is  ex- 
tremely lifelike,  and  was  made  about  3000  B.  C.  Then  they 
began  to  chisel  them  out  of  hard  stones  and  the  richest  had 
theirs  made  of  diorite,  the  hardest  known  substance.  It  is 
certainly  pitiful  to  see  this  continual  striving  against  the 
elements  which  they  knew  must  sooner  or  later  bring  them 
to  oblivion.  Of  course,  the  millions  who  could  not  hire 
these  things  done  for  them  had  no  hope  of  a  life  hereafter. 
King  Kepphren,  who  built  the  second  pyramid,  had  a  statue 
of  himself  placed  in  the  temple  every  year,  but  all  of  these 
were  broken  and  thrown  into  a  deep  well  as  we  have  said 
before,  and  only  six  years  ago  were  found  and  the  best  put 
in  this  museum.  Another  king  had  twelve  life-size  statues 
of  himself  set  around  his  tomb  which  are  particularly  not- 
able for  the  strength  of  character  expressed  in  the  face.  A 
pair  of  statues  shown  here  are  interesting  and  serve 
as  a  type  of  many  others.  Queen  Hadishue,  who  had  a  very 
romantic  history,  had  ruled  with  an  iron  and  treacherous 
hand  and  had  raised  women  to  the  place  where  their  images 
were  made  the  same  size  as  those  of  the  men.  So  here  we 
have  portrayed  by  statues  of  the  same  size,  a  noble  woman 
and  her  husband.  The  whole  face  of  the  woman  expresses 
high  caste  and  pride,  but  she  had  married  a  man  who  had 

21 


risen  from  the  common  people,  and  while  his  face  shows 
strength  and  ability,  still  there  is  an  almost  imperceptible 
look  of  humility.  The  woman  is  always  represented  in 
white  stone,  the  men  in  dark,  because  their  vocations  are 
supposed  to  take  them  out  into  the  sun  more. 

Now  we  come  to  the  second  period  of  Egyptian  re- 
ligion. All  these  years  rich  men  had  been  leaving  endow- 
ments to  pay  priests  for  saying  the  incantations  necessary 
for  the  spirit  to  extract  spiritual  sustenance  from  the  sym- 
bols, so  a  priesthood  had  grown  up  and  had  begun  to  dis- 
seminate ideas  of  their  own.  Hence  grew  up  a  religion  of 
gods  and  of  evil  genii  which  the  priest  must  be  paid  to 
placate.  Now  before  a  man  finally  became  incarnated  into 
Osiris  he  must  make  a  difficult  journey  of  twelve  stages. 
On  his  first  lap  he  was  met  by  Hathor,  the  goddess  of  love, 
incarnate  in  a  cow,  who  gave  him  milk  by  which  he  gained 
strength  to  continue  on  his  journey.  So  they  began  to  offer 
libations  to  the  images  of  his  goddess-cow,  the  first  in- 
stance of  offering  sacrifices  to  gods.  The  statue  of  this 
goddess  Hathor  is  one  of  the  finest  in  the  museum.  It 
shows  the  form  of  a  man,  colorless  and  dead,  leaning 
against  the  front  of  the  cow  for  support ;  then  he  is  kneeling 
and  drinking  milk  from  her  udder,  and  here  he  has  a  vivid 
color  as  if  life  had  been  put  into  him.  About  1500  B.  C.  the 
god  Osiris  was  supposed  to  have  lost  his  life  because  of 
the  evil  incantations  of  his  wife,  but  he  was  given  by 
Hathor  a  symbol  which  restored  him,  and  this  is  the  first 
mention  of  a  resurrection.  Here  We  see  also  pictures  of 
Egyptians  dancing  before  gods,  just  as  David  did  later 
"with  psaltry  and  harp."  Also  in  this  time  we  have  the 
forerunner  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  in  the  shrines  which 
the  Egyptians  made,  and  which  were  a  development  of  the 
old  libation-table.  It  was  placed  on  a  boat  because  that 
was  the  only  means  of  transportation  known  to  them.  This 
was  kept  in  a  holy  of  holies  in  the  Egyptian  temple  and 
God  permitted  the  Children  of  Israel  to  use  an  adaptation 
of  it. 

In  1225  B.  C.  is  found  the  first  mention  of  the  Children 
of  Israel.  On  a  stone  recording  the  doings  of  a  Pharaoh 
of  that  time  it  says  that  he  had  carried  away  captive  many 

22 


tribes,  mentioning  as  one  of  them  that  of  Israel.  This  con- 
firmation of  the  Bible  story  of  the  Egyptian  captivity  was 
dug  up  only  a  few  years  ago. 

March  11th 

This  afternoon  we  took  our  second  visit  to  the  museum 
to  inspect  the  more  modern  finds  of  Egyptian  antiquities, 
those  of  the  2oth  to  i8th  dynasties,  or  about  the  time  of 
the  Israelites  in  history.  In  the  I7th  dynasty  the  idea  of 
putting  in  spirit  pictures  to  minister  to  the  dead  changed 
and  they  began  to  put  in  little  statues  and  charms,  and  here 
we  find  the  first  scarabs.  One  high  official  who  was  afraid 
of  his  enemies  in  the  future  life  had  little  images  of  his 
bodyguard  of  light  and  heavy  infantry  put  into  his  coffin 
and  these  are  in  the  museum.  So  in  latter  days  there  came 
to  be  hundreds  of  these  little  "answeri"  put  in  who  were 
to  say  to  the  master's  spirit  when  it  called,  "Here  am  I." 
These  were  often  sent  to  the  funeral  by  friends  in  the  place 
of  flowers.  Then  the  process  of  mumifying  began,  first 
a  crook  was  inserted  through  the  nostrils  by  means  of 
which  the  brains  were  pulled  out,  then  an  incision  was 
made  in  the  left  side  through  which  the  heart,  lungs,  liver, 
and  great  intestines  were  taken  out,  and  these  were  put 
in  separate  jars  of  alabaster  filled  with  spices,  and  sealed. 
The  head  of  the  god  that  was  expected  to  protect  these  was 
carved  on  the  top  of  the  jar,  and  he  was  expected  to  keep 
them  intact  for  the  use  of  the  spirit  in  after  life.  Then  an 
image  of  the  sacred  beetle  or  "scarab"  was  put  in  place  of 
the  heart  with  the  inscription,  "O  my  heart,  rise  not  up 
against  me  in  the  day  of  judgment."  Then  a  charm  look- 
ing like  two  fingers  was  inserted  in  the  mouth  and  worked 
up  and  down  to  enable  the  spirit  to  talk  and  this  charm  was 
put  into  the  coffin  so  that  the  spirit  himself  could  use  it 
if  necessary.  The  body  was  next  put  into  a  peculiar  kind 
of  pickle  for  forty  days,  then  taken  out  and  filled  with 
spices,  and  where  we  read  in  the  Bible  of  men  going  down 
into  Egypt  bearing  spices  they  were  merchants  engaged  in 
a  then  lucrative  business  because  of  this  peculiar  burial 
custom.  Then  the  body  was  wrapped  in  hundreds  of  yards 
of  fine  linen,  and  various  gold  and  bead  trappings  put  on  it, 


then  with  the  charms  it  was  put  into  a  body-shaped  coffin, 
which  in  turn  was  put  into  another  of  the  same  kind,  then 
another.  This  was  put  into  a  stone  sarcophagi,  into  which 
was  put  some  more  images.  Then  this  was  put  into  a  tomb 
with  the  chairs,  chariots,  beds,  etc.,  which  the  spirit  must 
have  for  his  comfort.  But  if  a  dead  man  was  to  use  these 
they  must  also  be  killed,  so  they  were  broken  in  several 
places  before  being  put  in.  Still  another  ceremonial  was 
necessary.  A  large  board  was  sprinkled  with  soil  in  which 
wheat  was  planted  in  the  shape  of  Osiris.  This  was  allowed 
to  grow  until  six  inches  tall  and  then  dried  up  and  put  into 
the  sarcophagus  as  a  symbol  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body. 
Possibly  Christ  may  have  been  thinking  of  this  when  He 
said,  "Except  a  grain  of  wheat  fall  into  the  ground  and 
die  ...  ." 

Nine  years  ago  Theodore  M.  Davis  of  Chicago,  who 
puts  much  time  and  money  into  excavating  here,  stumbled 
onto  a  tomb  which  had  been  practically  untouched  and 
much  valuable  information  has  been  obtained  from  it.  It 
proved  to  be  the  burial  place  of  the  parents  of  the  wife  of 
Arminhotep,  III,  a  common  girl  whom  he  very  much  loved 
and  raised  from  the  ranks  to  reign  with  him  on  the  throne. 
Their  mummies,  extremely  well  preserved  even  to  their 
hair,  finger  nails  and  teeth,  together  with  all  their  trap- 
pings are  here  in  the  Theodore  M.  Davis  room.  Adjoining 
this  is  the  room  in  which  is  the  greatest  authentic  mummy, 
that  of  Rameses  II,  the  greatest  ruler  of  Egypt  and 
probably  the  Pharaoh  of  the  oppression  of  the  Children  of 
Israel.  His  was  the  nineteenth  dynasty  and  he  reigned 
sixty-seven  years,  dying  at  the  age  of  ninety-seven.  Here 
3000  years  and  more  after  his  death  we  children  of  a  day 
come  and  look  upon  his  actual  features  together  with  those 
of  his  father  Seti  I,  a  fine-looking  old  gentleman,  and  of 
his  son,  Rameses  III,  the  Pharaoh  of  the  Exodus.  These 
corpses  have  their  hands  crossed  in  imitation  of  Osiris.  We 
still  cross  the  hands  of  our  dead  loved  ones.  Why? 

The  next  thing  we  saw  of  interest  was  the  papyri.  One 
especially  interesting  is  a  picture  of  the  weighing  of  a  heart 
in  the  presence  of  Osiris,  the  first  idea  of  final  judgment,  in 
other  words  the  first  acknowledgement  that  man  is  to  be 

24 


F  2 


Q    < 
°£ 

UJ      LJ 

f  i 


judged  and  punished  or  rewarded  for  his  deeds  in  this 
world.  It  is  a  picture  of  a  man's  heart  in  a  balance  on  one 
side,  and  truth  in  the  other.  Osiris  is  watching  and  if 
they  balance,  the  man's  spirit  is  sent  to  the  Elysian  fields; 
if  not,  it  is  devoured  by  a  great  monster  that  sits  by.  There 
is  also  a  recording  angel  with  book  and  pen  in  hand.  Here 
again  these  people  who  were  trying  so  hard  to  solve  the 
mystery  of  their  after-life,  were  misled  by  a  wicked  priest- 
hood, who  persuaded  them  that  by  giving  offerings  and 
money  to  the  priests  they  would  be  able  to  pray  a  lost  soul 
through  the  judgment. 

March  12th 

We  went  this  afternon  to  Heliopolis,  in  the  land  of 
Goshen,  which  Joseph  allotted  to  his  father  and  brothers 
when  they  came  to  dwell  with  him  in  Egypt.  This  was 
the  seat  of  the  university  in  which  Moses  was  educated, 
and  here  in  this  beautiful  and  fertile  country,  the  Khedive 
of  Egypt  has  his  palace. 

JWarch  13th 

Today  was  a  great  day,  we  spent  the  whole  day  in  an 
excursion  to  Sakkara,  where  the  most  recent  excavations 
are.  But  it  was  not  so  much  the  place  as  the  manner  of 
our  going.  We  had  to  ride  for  ten  miles  along  the  desert, 
and  we  had  our  choice  of  four  means  of  locomotion ; 
camels,  donkeys,  sand-carts  or  "shanks  mare."  Mama  chose 
the  sand-cart,  papa  rode  camel-back  part  of  the  way  and 
I  rode  a  donkey,  since  I  had  ridden  a  camel  to  the  pyra- 
mids and  one  experience  was  enough.  Whichever  way  you 
take  you  are  sure  to  wish  you  had  taken  the  other.  Mary 
Payne,  one  of  our  young  ladies,  fell  off  twice,  but  I  suc- 
ceeded in  staying  on.  The  donkey-boys  ran  along  beside 
us,  as  patient  and  indefatigable  as  their  donkeys,  in  fact 
it. is  wonderful  how  strong  these  people  are.  It  is  nothing 
to  see  a  man  carrying  a  trunk  weighing  probably  two  hun- 
dred pounds,  and  on  top  of  it  several  suit  cases,  all  held 
on  his  back  by  means  of  a  strap  around  his  forehead.  He 
strikes  a  little  jog-trot  and  can  carry  such  a  load  indefin- 
itely. Today  we  saw  a  woman  carrying  a  large  gunny - 

25 


sack  of  cauliflowers  on  her  head.  But  to  go  back  to  our 
Memphis  trip.  We  encountered  a  small  sand  storm — just 
enough  of  a  one  to  give  us  a  fair  idea  of  what  a  disagree- 
able thing  they  could  be.  Memphis  or  Sakkara,  was  at 
the  time  of  the  Pharaohs,  the  chief  city  of  Egypt,  and  ex- 
tended up  the  river  from  the  pyramids  for  thirteen  miles, 
and  in  this  space  many  interesting  finds  have  been  made. 
Three  examples  of  rock-hewn  tombs  are  unearthed  here, 
very  interesting  in  their  spirit  pictures  and  their  por- 
trayal of  Egyptian  life.  Among  the  excavations  were 
found  the  ruins  of  a  great  temple  of  Rameses  II,  the 
Pharaoh  of  the  oppression,  and  here  we  saw  two  enor- 
mous statues  of  him,  one  in  granite  and  one  in  limestone. 
We  took  the  train  for  Cairo  and  were  grateful  for  the  bath 
and  bed  that  night,  and  all  of  us  got  up  or  sat  down  for 
several  days  afterward  in  a  rather  gingerly  fashion. 

JKarch  14th 

Today  we  went  to  the  University  mosque  of  Cairo,  the 
only  public  school.  The  building  in  which  it  is  held  was 
erected  900  years  ago  by  the  Sultan  Hassan  Ali,  and  an 
American  boy  would  stick  up  his  nose  at  it,  for  it  is  only 
a  colonnade  built  around  an  open  court  in  each  corner  of 
which  are  boxes  where  each  boy  may  keep  his  books,  din- 
ner and  bed,  for  many  live  right  here,  stretching  out  to 
sleep  on  a  piece  of  matting,  and  pulling  an  old  cloak  or 
coat  over  them  if  they  have  it.  School  begins  at  seven 
o'clock,  when  the  professors  come  and  hear  lessons  until 
nine,  then  the  pupils  study  until  four,  when  lessons  are 
heard  until  six  o'clock.  Each  professor  has  a  chair,  but 
the  pupils  are  seated  on  the  floor.  There  are  13,000  stu- 
dents, most  of  them  here  studying  at  the  same  time,  and 
it  sounded  bad  enough  when  they  were  only  studying, 
but  it  must  sound  like  pandemonium  let  loose  when  the 
recitations  are  going  on.  Little  boys  and  a  few  girls  come 
here  and  study  for  two  years;  then  if  they  pass  satisfac- 
tory examinations  they  are  allowed  two  loaves  of  bread 
a  day  by  the  government  as  a  help  to  their  further  educa- 
tion; then  if  their  work  is  satisfactory  at  the  end  of  two 
years  more  they  are  given  four  loaves  a  day,  and  so  on 

26 


through  a  course  of  twelve  years,  after  which  they  are 
mostly  given  government  positions.  Our  guide,  Machmud, 
had  four  years  here,  but  intends  to  educate  his  boy  in  Eng- 
land. He  belongs  to  the  better  class  of  Mohammedans 
and  is  as  simple  and  sincere  in  his  beliefs  as  any  Christian. 
He  rejects  the  tradition  of  Mohammed  flying  around 
through  the  air  just  as  we  reject  the  vagaries  of  some 
fanatics  in  our  own  religion.  He  gave  us  a  very  different 
idea  of  his  religion,  and  we  realized  that  there  were  stages 
of  sanity  among  the  Mohammedans  just  as  there  is  in 
everything.  They  believe  in  Christ  much  as  the  Unitarians 
do,  that  He  was  a  great  prophet  and  a  great  teacher,  but 
they  put  Mohammed  first.  Few  of  the  best  class  have 
more  than  one  wife  and  they  do  not  let  their  wives  work. 
We  have  seen  more  women  working  in  the  fields,  and  car- 
rying heavy  burdens  in  Palestine,  and  there  are  few 
Moslems  here. 

Connected  with  this  school  is  an  interesting  library, 
which  was  founded  seven  hundred  years  ago,  its  nucleus 
being  the  "books  of  the  Caliphs,"  which  are  still  on  ex- 
hibition. It  was  the  duty  of  each  Caliph  or  King  to  keep 
an  accurate  record  of  his  reign,  and  when  the  library  was 
started  these  were  given  to  it.  The  original  Koran  is  here 
but  not  on  exhibition.  It  was  printed  600  A.  D.  on  pot- 
tery. 

MCarch  15th 

There  is  a  section  of  Cairo  which  is  occupied  by  the 
Copts  or  ancient  Christians  who  very  carefully  preserved 
their  traditions,  among  others  a  church  over  a  grotto,  in 
which  Mary  and  Joseph  are  supposed  to  have  lived  with 
the  infant  Jesus.  Here  also  is  the  Mosque  of  Omar 
with  its  colonnade  of  365  pillars  stolen  from  pillaged 
churches.  There  are  two  pillars  by  which  Omar  used  to 
test  a  man's  veracity;  if  he  could  go  between  them  he  was 
adjudged  honest;  if  not,  a  liar.  As  the  pillars  are  not 
much  more  than  a  foot  apart,  few  people  must  have  been 
able  to  stand  the  test.  We  ferried  across  the  river  Nile  to 
the  Island  of  Rhoda,  one  of  the  places  pointed  out  as  the 
site  of  Moses'  rescue  from  the  bulrushes,  for  a  wonder  they 

27 


do  not  show  you  the  selfsame  bulrushes  but  here  we  also 
saw  a  Nile  meter  which  was  interesting.  It  was  built  by 
a  Caliph  who  wished  to  be  just  in  the  matter  of  taxes,  so 
he  built  this  to  measure  the  overflow  of  the  Nile  and  in  pro- 
portion as  it  was  large  or  small  he  increased  or  decreased 
the  tax  rate. 

On  Thursday  we  took  the  train  for  Port  Said  there  to 
await  our  boat  for  Joppa.  En  route  we  pass  again  through 
the  beautiful  wheat  fields  of  the  Land  of  Goshen,  and 
cross  the  oldest  established  road  known  to  man,  the  Syrian 
road,  by  which  Abraham  came  down  to  Egypt,  over  which 
Joseph  and  Jacob  traveled.  Soon  we  came  to  the  Suez 
canal  and  began  to  see  ocean  steamers  apparently  plowing 
through  the  sand.  The  building  of  this  canal  through  a 
level  stretch  of  sand  was  nothing  to  the  building  of  the 
Panama  canal,  as  De  Lesseps  found  to  his  sorrow.  A  large 
statue  of  him  stands  on  the  breakwater  at  Port  Said  in 
memory  of  his  accomplishment.  Port  Said  has  become 
quite  an  important  city  because  of  its  location  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  canal,  and  11,000  of  its  inhabitants  are  for- 
eigners. We  found  that  our  boat  was  delayed  on  account 
of  a  severe  storm  and  not  until  Sunday  did  we  have  the 
pleasure  of  seeing  her  come  into  port.  We  set  sail  imme- 
diately; the  vessel  was  a  Russian  freighter,  and  our  party 
were  the  only  first-class  passengers,  but  the  least  said  about 
this  private  yacht  the  better.  Our  regular  accommodations 
were  to  have  been  on  the  Khedival  line  but  as  it  would  have 
delayed  us  several  days  so  we  chose  to  take  this — our 
memories  of  it  are  not  kind,  though  the  crew  did  their 
best,  and  gave  us  a  good  dinner  before  we  got  to  sea.  They 
could  afford  it,  though,  for  no  one  ate  any  breakfast  the  next 
morning.  One  bright  spot  was  Sunday  eve  before  the 
"rocking  of  the  deep"  began.  Mr.  Bailey  plays  from  mem- 
ory almost  any  tune  we  could  suggest,  and  it  certainly  does 
add  greatly  to  our  enjoyment.  There  was  a  little  old 
wheezy  piano  in  the  dining  room,  and  we  sang  good  old 
home  tunes  and  hymns,  but  "Home,  Sweet  Home"  is 
tabooed,  there  is  not  one  of  us  who  could  sing  it  through 
with  dry  eyes,  but  how  lustily  we  all  sang  "And  the  Star- 
spangled  Banner,  oh,  long  may  it  wave,  O'er  the  land  of 
the  free  and  the  home  of  the  brave." 

28 


After  a  night  of  plunging  and  tossing,  sea  sickness,  and 
stifling  air,  for  we  could  not  keep  the  portholes  of  our  vessel 
open,  came  the  welcome  cry  "The  Judean  hills  are  in  sight." 
But  there  was  still  much  for  us  to  endure  before  we  set  foot 
in  Palestine.  Mama  used  to  tell  me  when  I  was  young 
that  there  was  "no  excellence  without  great  labor,"  that 
nothing  worth  having  was  to  be  had  except  by  great  effort, 
perhaps  that  is  why  you  must  go  through  Joppa  to  get  to 
Palestine.  A  perfect  Babel  of  voices  aroused  us  in  the 
morning  (you  will  never  know  what  Babel  is  until  you 
come  to  this  country).  This  was  the  boatmen  come  to  take 
us  and  our  baggage  to  the  shore,  about  a  half  mile  away. 
They  pitch  the  baggage  into  the  little  boats  right  from  the 
deck  and,  strange  to  say,  it  seldom  falls  into  the  water. 
The  passengers  are  led  as  sheep  to  the  slaughter  down  a 
narrow  ship's  stairway  and  pitched  into  the  boats  from 
this  lower  level,  and  the  wild  race  for  shore  began.  The 
waves  were  tossing  the  boats  about  like  corks,  trying  to 
wreck  us  on  the  jagged  rocks,  the  pains  of  seasickness 
"gat  hold  upon  us  and  we  were  sore  afraid."  This  was 
where  the  whale  was  supposed  to  have  cast  up  Jonah,  and 
it  is  no  wonder  that  he  did.  Those  of  us  who  had  so  far 
maintained  reputations  for  good  sailors,  lost  them  here,  and 
Papa,  who  through  fourteen  days  of  seasickness  might 
have  been  supposed  to  have  lost  everything  removable  from 
his  interior  anatomy,  wisely  put  his  teeth  into  his  pocket 
for  safe  keeping.  One  young  man  held  his  own  until  we 
reached  the  door  of  the  custom  house,  where  he  passed 
up  his  dinner  for  inspection.  So  through  all  this  we  came 
safely  and  were  actually  on  the  land  of  Christ.  We  only 
stayed  in  Joppa  long  enough  to  eat  lunch  and  go  to  the 
house  of  Simon  the  tanner.  Whether  this  is  the  spot  where 
Peter  had  his  vision  or  not,  it  is  at  least  the  vicinity,  and 
this  housetop  affords  a  fine  view  of  the  surrounding  coun- 
try. But  it  is  certain  that  into  this  bay  (improperly  so- 
called)  floated  the  cedars  of  Lebanon  for  the  temple  in 
Jerusalem.  From  here  we  take  train  for  Jerusalem, 
through  a  country  which  was  I  think  a  revelation  to  all  of 
us.  Coming  from  the  deserts  of  Egypt  with  only  the  flat 
strip  of  Nile  country  green,  this  land  must  have  been  a 


paradise  to  the  Israelites.  Around  Joppa  are  orange  trees 
loaded  with  yellow  fruit,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  trees 
were  crowded  together,  and  little  care  given  to  them.  They 
never  have  orange  pests  here;  if  they  did,  the  trees  would 
certainly  all  be  gone  in  no  time.  Soon  we  reach  the  rocky 
hills,  with  the  blue  Moab  mountains  looming  in  the  dis- 
tance. Here  in  the  valley  are  green  fields  of  wheat,  and 
on  the  stone-terraced  hills  olive  groves  and  vineyards. 
Farther  as  we  climb  the  hills,  for  Jerusalem  is  2500  feet 
above  sea  level,  we  reach  a  country  so  rocky  that  it  is 
given  over  to  pasturage  for  black  goats  which  dot  the 
rocks  and  clamber  everywhere.  Passing  through  Ramleh 
and  Lydda,  both  Bible  towns,  we  finally  come  into  sight  of 
Jerusalem  perched  on  its  hill-tops,  and  more  modern  than 
ancient.  The  train  stops  at  the  foot  of  the  hill,  and  out- 
side of  the  walls ;  in  fact,  more  of  Jerusalem  now  lies  out- 
side the  walls.  Our  hotel  is  just  outside  the  old  walls  and 
as  we  go  to  it,  we  have  a  good  chance  to  examine  the  wall 
to  its  very  foundations;  by  the  cut  and  size  of  the  stones 
one  could  easily  tell  that  it  had  often  been  destroyed  and 
rebuilt.  But  the  foundation  stones  were  certainly  put  there 
by  Solomon,  though  few  of  them  are  visible  above  the 
debris,  and  the  needles-eye,  of  which  we  read,  was  torn 
down  four  years  ago  to  allow  the  carriage  of  the  Emperor 
William  to  pass  through,  and  a  modern  stone  clock  tower 
adorns  (?)  its  top. 

Our  first  trip  in  Jerusalem  is  to  the  top  of  the  Grand 
Central  Hotel,  just  inside  the  Jaffa  gate,  from  which  we  ob- 
tained a  splendid  vista  of  the  city  and  its  main  points  of 
interest.  The  temple  area  (the  site  of  Solomon's  temple) 
stands  out  very  distinctly  from  this  point  with  its  great 
black  dome  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  which  stands  in  its 
midst.  The  Moslems  hardly  allow  the  Christians  to  have 
a  single  sacred  spot,  a  mosque  is  pretty  sure  to  cover  these 
Biblical  sites.  Against  the  eastern  sky  line  is  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  topped  with  the  modern  stone  tower  of  a  Greek 
church.  Be3>-ond  this,  thirty  miles  away  are  the  blue  Moab 
mountains,  shadowing  the  Jordan  Valley  and  the  Dead  Sea. 
Dotting  the  hills  to  the  north  are  several  stone  hospices 
which  are  interesting  in  themselves.  Thousands  of  poor 

30 


pilgrims  come  here  to  worship  in  the  places  sacred  to  their 
church,  the  Greek.  They  walk  all  the  way,  only  going 
by  boat  where  it  is  absolutely  necessary.  Most  of  them  are 
Russians  or  German  of  the  poorer  class,  and  of  course  they 
must  have  some  place  to  stay  while  here,  so  these  hospices 
are  provided  for  them,  by  whom  I  do  not  know.  It  is  now 
nearing  their  Easter  and  the  country  is  full  of  these  pil- 
grims; men  and  women  in  awkward  garments  and  heavy 
boots,  all  carrying  bundles  or  buckets,  or  baskets,  most 
of  them  middle-aged  or  past,  some  of  them  look  to  be 
seventy.  From  here  we  saw  also  the  innumerable  little 
domes  which  I  had  always  supposed  denoted  the  residences 
of  Moslems,  but  they  are  simply  made  that  way  so  as  to 
shed  the  water  and  run  it  into  the  cisterns,  which  are  the 
only  source  of  water  supply. 

From  this  general  view  of  Jerusalem,  we  went  first 
to  see  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  As  a  building, 
this  was  a  great  disappointment ;  most  of  the  grandeur  that 
we  read  about  is  pretty  badly  tarnished,  and  the  interior  is 
so  squat  and  broken  up,  with  none  of  the  lofty  domes  and 
beautiful  mosaics  of  the  mosques.  And  it  is  really  ridicu- 
lous to  be  taken  around  an  area  of  150  square  feet  and 
shown  the  places  where  Christ  was  tried,  judged,  went  to 
Golgotha,  executed,  laid  out,  buried,  and  resurrected,  and 
just  to  give  you  good  measure  they  can  also  show  you  the 
tomb  of  Adam !  In  spite  of  this  the  sentimental  effect  is 
entirely  different  from  what  one  would  expect.  This 
church  was  built  by  Constantine  336  A.  D.,  and  around 
it  have  been  waged  the  wars  of  the  Crusaders,  and  of  Greek 
and  Latin  disciples,  etc.,  so  that  it  has  had  to  be  rebuilt 
many  times,  and  here  for  1500  years  and  more  thousands  of 
Christians  have  come  to  pay  tribute  to  their  King  and  ours. 
Some  of  the  incense  of  their  simple  faith  and  devotion  clings 
around  the  place,  for  one  is  affected  with  great  reverence 
for  these  venerated  stones,  false  though  they  may  be ;  they 
are  still  the  expression  of  love  and  worship  of  thousands 
for  the  Savior  of  mankind. 

The  church  is  divided  for  the  sake  of  peace  between  the 
Greeks,  Latins  and  Armenians,  the  Greeks  possessing  the 
greater  part.  Some  of  their  shrines  are  very  fine,  being 

31 


inlaid  with  gold  and  mother-of-pearl,  and  set  with  very 
precious  jewels.  But  through  all  this,  the  astounding  para- 
dox exists  that  a  Turkish  soldier  must  attend  you  to  pro- 
tect you  from  your  Christian  brothers,  Greek,  Roman,  or 
Armenian,  who  otherwise  might  do  you  bodily  harm.  The 
only  way  to  get  any  good  from  a  visit  to  this  country  is 
to  set  aside  all  these  strifes,  foolish  traditions,  and  impos- 
sible absurdities,  and  simply  to  remember  that  here  through 
all  the  years  men  have  sought,  according  to  their  several 
abilities  and  light,  to  do  reverence  to  the  humble  Christ, 
who  lived  and  taught  in  this  degraded  land.  The  next 
place  we  visited  was  the  Upper  Room  of  the  Last  Supper, 
which  seems  to  have  a  certain  degree  of  authenticity.  It 
was  the  house  of  the  mother  of  Mark,  and  here  the  disciples 
came  after  the  crucifixion,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  fell  upon 
them.  The  site  was  occupied  by  a  small  church  when  the 
Crusaders  came  and  they  built  a  fine  one  which  in  turn 
was  destroyed  by  the  Mohammedans;  and  a  mosque  now 
stands  on  the  spot. 

The  next  morning  we  spent  our  time  in  the  Temple 
Area,  which  is  undoubtedly  the  place  of  Solomon's  Temple, 
and  has  been  occupied  by  a  temple  of  some  kind  ever  since. 
It  is  probably  where  the  temple  stood,  in  which  the  parents 
of  Christ  found  Him  disputing  with  the  elders  when  He 
was  twelve  years  of  age  and  He  also  taught  here  in  His 
mature  years.  On  the  southwest  wall  was  the  Tower  of 
Antonio  where  Paul  was  imprisoned.  The  ground  was  a 
threshing  floor  purchased  by  David  on  which  to  build  an 
altar  and  it  has  had  the  same  use  ever  since.  Here  Solo- 
mon built  his  magnificent  temple  in  950  B.  C.,  which  was 
destroyed  by  Nebuchednezzar  46  B.  C.  Herod  the  Great, 
as  a  salve  to  the  feelings  of  the  Jews,  built  here  a  very 
fine  temple,  which  after  its  destruction  was  replaced  by 
Nehemiah.  This  one  was  destroyed  by  Titus  70  A.  D.  and 
a  temple  to  Jupiter  built  in  its  stead.  This  was  captured  by 
the  Mohammedans,  and  during  the  crusades  went  back  and 
forth  several  times  between  them  and  the  Christians.  The 
church  or  mosque  which  now  stands  in  the  middle  of  the 
area  was  built  by  Justinian  in  the  sixth  century,  and  is  a 
composite  of  church  and  mosque,  the  mosque  part  much 

32 


o  o 

5  "• 

*<.  o 

Z    H 

K/  UJ 

^  3 

^  S 
hi 

X 
H 


surpassing  in  beauty  the  Christian.  The  few  remains  of  the 
old  mosaic  to  be  seen  on  the  walls  of  the  dome,  are  dainty 
and  soft  in  their  blending  of  colors,  also  the  absence  of 
sharp  edges  or  angles  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Bysan- 
tine  arches,  adds  to  the  general  effect.  This  colonnade  is 
built  around  the  Rock  Moriah,  which  is  the  core  of  it  all, 
for  the  Mohammedans  think  it  bears  a  footprint  of  their 
leader,  made  when  he  took  his  flight  from  it  to  Heaven. 
This  building  you  will  understand  occupies  only  a  part  of 
the  area,  much  of  it  not  being  built  over.  Now  we  went 
down  the  stairs  to  the  excavations  which  bring  us  to  the 
level  of  the  ground  in  Christ's  time,  and  to  the  gate  on  the 
Jerusalem  side,  through  which  undoubtedly  Christ  and  His 
disciples  often  came.  Of  course  this  is  now  subterranean, 
but  the  old  Herodian  arches  still  remain,  also  Solomon's 
stables  and  the  holes  in  the  rock  where  the  Crusaders  tied 
their  horses.  Now  we  ascended  again  and  went  to  the  top 
of  the  southeast  wall  which  is  also  the  old  Jerusalem  wall. 
This  is  225  feet  above  the  Kedron  valley,  and  tradition  has 
it  that  Ajax,  the  brother  of  Christ,  was  cast  down  to  his 
death  from  this  point.  On  the  south  of  this  area  is  the 
Golden  Gate,  now  walled  up. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  over  to  the  Via  Dolorosa, 
another  one,  for  we  have  already  seen  one  in  the  church  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre,  but  this  is  the  one  that  the  Latin  Chris- 
tians venerate.  It  has  twelve  stations  to  represent  twelve 
stages  of  Christ's  journey  to  the  crucifixion,  but  all  of  them 
are  so  palpably  fakes  that  they  are  not  interesting.  But 
we  know  the  location  of  Solomon's  quarries,  from  which 
the  stone  for  the  temple  was  taken  and  can  walk  into  them 
with  candles  to  light  our  way.  This  country  seems  to  be  all 
white  limestone  underneath  and  everything  here  is  built 
from  it  as  lumber  (wood)  is  very  high.  It  is  soft  and  very 
white  in  its  native  state  but  hardens  and  takes  on  a  beau- 
tiful cream  color  when  exposed  to  the  air. 

To  me  the  trip  to  Bethlehem  was  a  disappointment, 
rather  Bethlehem  itself  was.  The  ride  was  a  very  pretty 
one,  through  scenery  typical  of  this  country,  rolling  rocky 
hills  and  little  green  valleys  of  grain  and  olive  trees,  and 
frequent  villages  of  limestone  houses  clinging  to  the  hill- 

33 


sides.  Bethlehem  is  a  typical  modern  Arab  village  where 
one  encounters  laden  camels,  donkeys  and  women  in  the 
streets,  dirty  children  and  a  more  than  usual  number  of  de- 
mands for  "backsheesh."  Making  beads  of  mother-of-pearl 
from  the  Red  Sea  and  begging  from  foreigners  seems  to 
be  the  chief  means  of  livelihood.  The  inn  of  the  village 
in  Christ's  time  was  next  to  the  market  place  which  is  still 
here,  dirty  and  picturesque  as  things  go  in  this  country; 
camels  loaded  with  roots  which  their  masters  sell  for  wood, 
donkeys  and  donkey  boys,  yelling  men  and  gesticulating 
veiled  women.  Here  also  was  the  milk  market.  They 
take  something  that  looks  to  me  like  the  large  intestines  of 
a  large  animal  and  put  in  some  goat's  milk,  then  tie  a  knot 
in  the  bag  to  hold  it  in.  With  these  slimy  bags  on  the 
ground  before  them  the  women  sit  around  in  the  dirt  wait- 
ing for  customers.  They  would  wait  a  long  time  if 
Americans  were  their  customers.  The  women  in  Bethle- 
hem have  a  distinctive  headdress  and  their  husbands  are 
saved  the  necessity  of  buying  spring  and  fall  bonnets  in 
the  latest  style.  It  is  a  sort  of  a  spangled  peach  basket  cov- 
ered over  with  a  white  cloth  which  hangs  half  way  down 
their  backs. 

First  we  go  to  a  high  place,  as  usual,  to  get  a  general 
view  of  the  land  and  here  we  see  nestling  in  the  barren 
hills  a  beautiful  field  which  is  very  probably  the  field  of 
Boaz,  "where  Ruth  gleaned  a  husband."  It  was  also  quite 
probable  in  the  vicinity  where  the  shepherds  heard  the 
Angels'  song  when  Christ  was  born.  To  the  right  is  an 
enormous  mound,  like  a  sort  of  huge  pyramid  in  which 
Herod  the  Great  was  buried.  On  the  east  were  the  beau- 
tiful Moab  mountains  towards  which  Ruth  must  have 
looked  sometimes  and  longed  for  home.  Now  we  go  to  the 
church  of  the  Nativity.  Somehow  this  did  not  impress  me 
as  did  the  other  memorial  places  of  Christ,  although  it 
very  probably  covers  the  grotto  where  He  was  born.  But 
men  and  their  petty  strifes  and  jealousies,  and  the  fact 
that  Turkish  soldiers  stand  about  even  in  the  cave  where 
the  Holy  Babe  was  born,  spoils  the  effect.  This  church  is 
divided  up  between  Greeks,  Latins  and  Armenians,  the 
latter  having  only  a  very  small  portion. 

34 


It  was  a  relief  to  find  in  the  afternoon  a  place  that  men 
had  not  spoiled.  The  two  spots  where  we  know  with  cer- 
tainty He  sorrowed  in  those  last  sad  days,  have  been  beau- 
tifully preserved  to  us,  Mount  of  Olives  and  Gethsemane. 
In  the  afternoon  of  a  clear  spring  day,  we  could  overlook, 
from  Olivet,  practically  all  the  land  of  Christ's  earthly  life, 
the  hills  of  Bethlehem,  of  Galilee,  the  Mountains  of  Moab, 
of  Gilead,  and  Judea,  the  river  Jordan,  the  Dead  Sea,  and 
near  at  hand  across  the  narrow  Kedron  Valley,  the  old  gray 
walls  of  Jerusalem  and  the  glittering  round  tower  of  the 
Mosque  of  Omar.  The  Holy  City  is  spread  out  like  a  relief 
map  before  us.  It  was  from  this  eminence  that  He  cries 
out  "Oh,  Jerusalem,  how  oft  would  I  have  gathered  thee 
as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens,  but  ye  would  not."  Now 
we  start  downward  on  a  steep,  rocky  path,  winding  down 
the  Jerusalem  side  of  the  Mount.  Over  the  distant  hills, 
the  sun  is  flinging  its  long  farewell  rays,  up  the  rocky  sides 
of  the  Mount,  bare  and  gloomy  now  that  it  is  denuded  of  its 
olive  trees,  climbs  the  darkening  shadow  of  the  towering 
walls  of  the  Holy  City,  covering  with  a  dark  mantle  the 
"Tomb  of  Absalom,"  and  the  myriad  stones  of  the  Hebrew 
cemetery  in  the  valley.  Around  a  sharp  corner  we  come 
suddenly  upon  some  lepers  huddled  against  the  wall ; 
two  burning  eyes  peering  from  the  bundles  of  rags,  two 
ofttimes  fingerless  hands  held  out  in  a  pitiful  appeal  for 
backsheesh.  Soon  we  are  admitted  through  a  little  door 
into  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane.  Here  are  plots  of  wall- 
flowers, stock,  anemones,  rosemary,  all  the  old-fashioned 
flowers  that  bring  back  the  fragrance  of  grandmother's 
garden,  growing  in  orderly  profusion  around  the  eight  ven- 
erable olive  trees  that  they  claim  were  started  from  cut- 
tings of  the  ones  that  stood  here  in  the  time  of  Christ.  This 
sacred  spot  was  given  years  ago  into  the  care  of  the  Fran- 
ciscan monks,  and  with  rare  good  taste  have  they  fulfilled 
their  trust.  Here  is  no  gaudy  temple  or  obtrusive  monu- 
ment, but  here  in  the  place  of  our  Lord's  greatest  agony, 
He  is  kept  in  loving  remembrance  by  the  familiar  flowers, 
the  holy  quiet  and  the  sweet  orderliness  which  He  loved. 
Fitting  perfectly  into  the  general  peacefulness  is  the  little 
brown-clad  monk,  who  admits  us  and  says  courteously, 

35 


"The  ladies  may  pick  flowers  if  they  wish."  The  quiet  of 
evening  was  settling  down  on  the  little  garden,  the  thick 
green  walls  shut  out  the  sight  and  sounds  of  the  sinful, 
sorrowful  city  so  close  at  hand,  the  tall  cypresses  pointed 
like  long  fingers  heavenward.  By  common  consent  we  all 
drew  apart  to  meditate,  for  here  we  felt  that  we  had  found 
the  soul  of  the  Holy  Land.  Henry  Van  Dyke's  "Out  of 
Doors  in  the  Holy  Land"  is  the  best  book  I  have  so  far 
read  on  this  country  and  what  he  says  of  this  spot  is  beau- 
tiful. I  will  quote  it  as  nearly  as  I  can  remember.  Nothing 
in  our  Bible  that  has  been  made  new  to  us  in  the  light  of 
this  journey  has  been  so  sweetly  and  so  tenderly  brought 
home  to  our  minds  as  the  story  of  Gethsemane.  "Here  the 
human  love  of  life  in  Christ  struggled  with  the  divine  pur- 
pose of  sacrifice;  here  for  the  first  time  the  cup  seemed 
too  bitter  and  He  cried  out,  'Father,  if  it  be  Thy  will,  let 
this  cup  pass  from  Me.'  Here  He  learned  the  frailty  of  hu- 
man friendship,  the  indifference  and  coldness  of  those  very 
hearts  for  whom  He  had  suffered  most,  who  could  not 
watch  with  Him  for  one  hour.  Jesus  met  the  spirit  of 
despair  in  the  Garden  and  when  that  meeting  was  over 
the  cross  had  no  terrors  for  Him,  for  He  had  already  en- 
dured them,  Death  had  no  fears,  for  He  had  already  con- 
quered them.  How  calm  and  gentle  was  the  voice  with 
which  He  called  His  disciples;  how  firm  the  step  with 
which  He  went  to  meet  Judas.  The  fear  of  Death  was  be- 
hind him  in  the  shadows  of  the  olive  trees,  the  peace  of 
Heaven  was  above  Him  in  the  silent  stars." 

The  rest  of  the  crowd  went  to  see  the  tomb  of  Mariedna 
and  several  other  interesting  things  which  I  did  not  get 
to  see,  so  I  am  going  to  have  papa  write  of  them  as  well  as 
the  trip  to  Jericho,  which  we  took  in  the  afternoon  staying 
over  the  next  day  and  making  an  early  morning  start  back 
to  Jerusalem.  This  is  a  trip  very  much  dreaded,  especially 
by  those  who  are  tender  of  horses,  so  Mama  decided  that 
she  had  better  not  try  it.  It  is  a  fairly  good  road  leading 
over  a  rocky,  hilly  country,  but  need  not  be  hard  on  horses 
that  have  been  properly  fed  and  cared  for,  but  the  natives 
here  seem  to  have  no  idea  of  the  care  of  horses  and  the 
poor  things  are  a  pitiful  looking  lot.  There  is  now  a  So- 

36 


ciety  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  doing  good 
work  in  Jerusalem  and  there  is  every  reason  to  hope  that 
this  condition  of  the  donkeys  and  horses  may  shortly  be 
remedied.  The  Dunning  Company  are  as  careful  as  cir- 
cumstances will  allow  and  do  not  load  their  carriages  as 
heavily  as  most  of  the  other  touring  companies  do;  we 
had  three  horses  to  each  carriage  and  only  two  passengers 
while  we  saw  many  vehicles  on  this  road  in  which  were 
four  passengers  and  only  two  horses.  Several  miles  out 
from  Jerusalem  we  passed  through  Bethany,  the  home 
of  Mary  and  Martha,  now  a  little,  squalid  village  in  which 
from  appearances  there  are  no  "careful  Marthas"  today. 
This  country  is  practically  uninhabited  and  save  for  a  few 
Bedouin  tents  we  see  no  sign  of  human  habitation,  until  we 
reach  the  Good  Samaritan  Inn,  from  which  we  begin  to 
descend  into  the  Jordan  valley,  where  ancient  and  modern 
Jericho  now  are.  Two  distinct  "Tell"  mark  the  site 
of  ancient  and  mediaeval  Jericho,  and  a  huddle  of  stone  huts 
farther  out  in  the  valley  were  the  present  town.  In  the 
evening  we  climbed  to  the  top  of  the  Mount  of  Tempta- 
tion from  which  we  had  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  whole 
country  of  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea.  Mr.  Bailey  wrote 
such  an  excellent  description  of  this  view  that  we  persuaded 
him  to  let  us  have  it  and  insert  it  here,  also  we  are  glad 
to  have  the  chance  to  show  you  what  a  capable  leader 
we  had ;  we  have  felt  that  we  were  very  fortunte  in  having 
with  us  a  man  of  such  broad  knowledge  and  abilities. 

"I  have  just  come  down  from  a  mountain  back  of 
Jericho.  It  is  .the  last  of  the  hills  of  Judea  before  they  sud- 
denly drop  into  the  Jordan  Valley,  and  it  is  said  to  be  the 
place  where  Christ  was  tempted.  It  certainly  is  grim 
enough  to  be  the  spot.  In  fact  they  point  out  a  cave  high 
upon  the  cliff  where  He  fasted  forty  days.  The  Greek 
monks  have  plastered  a  monastery  like  a  barn  swallows' 
nest  right  against  the  face  of  the  precipice  and  are  using 
this  cave  as  their  dining  room.  I  presume  the  devil  still 
comes  to  tempt  some  of  them,  for  the  monastery  is  a  prison 
for  bad  monks.  But  I  went  up  there,  not  to  meet  the  devil, 
nor  to  see  the  ill-kempt  monks  with  their  long  dresses,  their 
rimless  stove-pipe  hats,  and  their  hair  tied  up  in  a  knot; 

37 


but  I  went  to  get  one  of  the  finest  views  in  Palestine.  I 
wish  I  could  make  you  see  it  late  in  the  afternoon.  We 
toiled  up  the  zigzag  path  cut  in  the  perpendicular  face  of 
the  cliff  and  stood  at  last  on  one  of  the  balconies  that  over- 
hang the  dizzy  height.  Down  below  us  the  swallows  and 
hawks  were  wheeling,  and  the  valley  bottom  was  hundreds 
of  feet  lower  still,  so  that  a  big  stone  which  the  monks  threw 
down  burst  when  it  hit  the  bottom  with  a  noise  like  a 
gun,  while  the  echoes  rolled  and  rattled  among  the  preci- 
pices. 

"Take  a  look  with  me. 

"Almost  a  thousand  feet  below  us  do  you  see  that  little 
hill  like  a  city  dump-heap?  That  is  old  Jericho — the  very 
city  whose  walls  fell  down  as  Joshua  and  his  trumpeting 
army  marched  around  it.  The  houses  had  not  seen  the  light 
oi  day  for  two  thousand  years,  but  now  they  stand  uncov- 
ered there,  what  is  left  of  them,  and  the  strong  wall  that 
shut  them  in.  Beyond  the  mound  the  green  fields  begin, 
fields  of  grain  in  full  blade,  groves  of  orange  and  banana, 
vineyards  and  orchards,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  houses 
of  modern  Jericho  rise,  some  whitewashed  and  red  roofed, 
some  mud  colored.  Beyond  Jericho  on  both  sides  the  eye 
wanders  over  the  long  Jordan  Valley.  It  is  a  vast  pasture 
land,  in  places  covered  with  scanty  green  and  in  places 
chalky  white  where  the  marl  breaks  through.  Look  closely 
over  this  variegated  surface  and  you  can  see  hundreds  of 
moving  black  dots — black  goats  and  cows  and  men;  and 
here  and  there  low  black  tents  where  the  Bedouins  live, 
the  tribes  that  come  over  from  the  east  of  Jordan  to  find 
better  pasture — here  today  and  gone  tomorrow.  I  can 
count  sixty-five  of  them  scattered  over  the  broad  plain  and 
a  glass  would  bring  out  many  more. 

"This  land  of  many  colors  slopes  gently  down  and  down 
to  where  between  its  steep  chalky  banks  the  Jordan  rushes, 
muddy  and  swift,  hidden  from  sight  in  a  jungle  of  bushes 
and  trees,  till  it  emerges  to  the  south  in  the  waters  of  the 
Dead  Sea.  And  when  your  eye  has  leaped  the  chasm  of  the 
Jordan  it  runs  up  another  long  slope  to  the  hills  and  moun- 
tains of  Moab,  to  Mt.  Nebo  that  hangs  over  the  Salt  Sea, 
the  Nebo  where  Moses  lies  buried;  and  to  Mt.  Gilead,  the 

38 


great  table-land  across  which  Abraham  and  Jacob  came 
from  the  East  to  the  promised  land.  You  can  see  forty 
miles  in  two  directions. 

"How  the  centuries  of  history  sweep  down  this  valley 
before  you ! 

"There  come  Lot  with  all  his  tribe  down  from  the  hills 
of  Bethel  behind  you,  and  pitches  his  tent  toward  Sodom. 
There  come  the  five  kings  of  the  plain  and  fight  against 
Chedorlarum  and  his  kings  from  Babylon.  In  the  slime 
pits  by  the  Dead  Sea  they  join,  and  the  victorious  troops 
whirl  by  us  on  the  way  north,  laden  with  spoil.  Abraham 
and  his  servants  on  desert  horses  dash  in  pursuit  and  pres- 
ently return  with  Lot  and  the  recaptured  goods.  Now,  the 
three  angels  come  down  from  Hebron  to  Sodom  and  the 
smoke  of  the  burning  city  ascends  like  the  smoke  of  a 
furnace. 

"Now,  the  heathen  tribes  come  down  from  the  wall  of 
Moab  across  Jordan,  and  little  Jericho  at  our  feet  goes  down 
in  blood  and  fire.  David's  armies  sally  out  from  the  defiles, 
cross  the  broad  plain  and  scale  Gilead's  walls  to  Rabboth 
Ammon,  where  valiant  Uriah  meets  his  doom.  And  there 
goes  David  himself,  with  his  little  band  of  servants  fleeing 
before  Absalom. 

"Now  the  artisans  of  Hiram  and  Solomon  swarm  down, 
and  in  the  clayey  Jordan  soil  cast  the  big  pillars  and  the 
lavers  of  bronze  for  the  temple. 

"And  what  shall  we  say  of  Elijah  and  Elisha,  Omri, 
and  Hezekiah,  Shisbat  and  Sennacherib  and  Nebuchad- 
nezzer,  Antichus  and  the  Maccabees,  of  Pompey  and 
Herod  the  Great,  Saladin  and  Richard,  the  Lion-hearted, 
Bedouin  Sheik  and  Crusader — each  pursuing  his  own 
dream  of  empire,  building  or  laying  waste,  blessing  or  curs- 
ing. But,  most  gracious  of  all,  there  comes  John,  the  fore- 
runner, to  herald  the  Lamb  of  God ;  and  there  walks  Christ 
in  the  midst  of  His  disciples,  while  all  the  ways  are  thronged 
to  meet  him,  and  Zaccheus  begins  a  better  life,  and  the  blind 
men  rejoice  in  their  sight  restored. 

"A  wonderful  panorama,  is  it  not? 

"The  sun  is  getting  low.  The  great  clouds  that  have 
sailed  like  snow  drifts  above  us  are  blushing  red;  from 

39 


their  purple  skirts  long  shadows  fling  themselves  across 
the  valley  below.  Moab  burns  like  an  opal,  which  streaks 
every  mountain  with  purple.  The  air  grows  cool.  The  rosy 
slopes  of  Gilead  fade  to  violet  and  become  inky  blue  as  a 
mighty  thunder  cloud  sweeps  over  them.  The  shadow 
of  our  mountain  creeps  out  over  the  valley.  The  black  dots 
begin  to  huddle  together  and  to  move  nearer  to  their  tents 
of  hair.  From  their  bells  faint  tinklings  reach  us.  A  far- 
off  shepherd  calls.  From  the  valley  ovens  rise  thin  blue 
trails  of  smoke.  Far-off  dogs  are  barking  as  their  mas- 
ters return  from  the  fields.  The  daylight  is  gone.  Only 
the  giant  crest  of  the  thunder  cloud  is  blood  red  as  it 
crushes  out  Gilead  and  creeps  on  to  Arabia.  The  monas- 
tery bell  calls  the  monks  to  prayer.  There  is  a  camp  fire 
burning  beyond  Jordan  where  some  caravan  has  halted. 
Let  us  go  down  to  Jericho." 

The  next  day  we  drove  to  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea, 
passing  on  the  way  the  tree  that  marks  the  site  of  Gil- 
gal  (Josh  5,  9).  We  took  a  boat  ride  on  the  Jordan,  which 
is  a  turbid  muddy  stream,  rowing  to  the  ford  where  the 
Children  of  Israel  crossed  and  standing  for  a  time  on  the 
land  of  Moab.  Then  we  went  on  to  the  Dead  Sea.  It  is 
47  miles  long  and  ten  wide,  1292  feet  deep  and  it  is  said 
that  six  and  one-half  million  tons  of  fresh  water  falls  into 
the  sea  daily  and  is  evaporated  so  that  the  level  of  the  sea 
varies  not  more  than  thirteen  to  twenty  feet  with  the  sea- 
son. The  water  is  very  blue,  with  a  brown  streak  reaching 
out  into  it  where  the  Jordan  water  enters.  Papa  compared 
this  struggle  of  the  pure  to  overcome  the  impure  water 
with  our  struggle  with  sin,  in  which  we  were  just  as  sure 
to  lose  without  Christ's  help,  as  this  water  is  to  be  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  briny  Dead  Sea.  Here  is  a  list  of  Bible 
references  which  deal  with  this  valley: 

Deut.  34,  5 — Moses  died. 

Josh.  3,   14 — Israel  passed  over. 

2  Kings  5,  14 — Naaman  healed;  6,  6 — Iron  swims. 

Matthew  3,  13 — Christ  baptized. 

Joshua  4,  19 — Israel  encamped ;  5,  9 — Why  called  Gilgal. 

i  Samuel  n,  15 — Saul  made  king. 

Num.  22,  I — Israel  Encamped. 

40 


Deut.  34,  3— City  of  Palm  Trees. 

Josh.  2,  i — Spies  go  to  Jericho ;  6,  20 — Walls  fall. 

2  Sam.  10,  15 — Tarry. 

2  Kings  2 — Elisha  and  Elijah. 

Math.  20,  34 — The  blind  men  healed. 

Luke  19,  21 — Zachaeus. 

2  Kings  2,  21 — Waters  healed. 

Gen.  19,  24 Sodom  and  Gomorroh. 

Deut.  31  ,17 — Sea  of  the  plains. 

i  Kings  17,  4 — Elijah  fed  by  the  ravens. 

Our  marching  orders  last  night  read :  "Be  ready  to  start 
north  at  two  o'clock.  All  baggage  out  by  noon."  Shukrey, 
our  dragoman,  had  telegraphed  to  Haifa  for  carriages  for 
us  a  week  ago,  and  they  were  in  waiting;  our  trunks  hav- 
ing been  sent  to  Beirut  via  Joppa,  only  our  hand  baggage 
goes  in  the  carriage  with  us.  Each  three-seated  wagon 
takes  three  people  and  the  driver,  they  are  gotten  from 
Haifa  because  the  horses  there  are  so  much  better  than 
those  of  Jerusalem.  The  three  horses  are  hitched  abreast, 
and  with  cracking  of  whip  and  chattering  of  Arabs,  we  leave 
the  Holy  City,  though  we  catch  glimpses  of  it  for  fifteen 
miles.  We  drove  that  night  to  Ramallah,  seeing  on  the  way 
Beireh  and  Bethel,  also  Gibeah  of  Saul,  and  Noph,  where 
Deborah  prophesyed.  At  Beireh  were  the  ruins  of  an  old 
crusaders'  church,  many  of  which  dot  this  land.  This 
is  a  Moslem  village,  but  they  have  seen  the  difference  be- 
tween their  town  and  the  adjacent  village  of  Ramallah, 
and  so  have  petitioned  the  mission  to  start  a  day  school 
among  them,  and  it  will  be  done  as  soon  as  sufficient 
funds  can  be  raised.  The  others  of  our  party  must  stay  at 
the  hotel,  a  good  one  owned  by  Shukrey  Hishmesh,  our 
guide,  but  we  had  the  great  pleasure  of  staying  with  Prof, 
and  Mrs.  Rosenberger  at  the  Friend's  mission  here.  Started 
here  forty  years  ago  under  adverse  circumstances,  it  has 
come  to  be  a  beacon  light,  and  is  visited  by  tourists  of  all 
denominations  and  countries  to  see  what  can  be  done  with 
these  people.  I  know  of  no  better  example  than  our  Shuk- 
rey. His  father  was  educated  and  converted  at  Mt.  Leb- 
anon mission,  further  north,  maintained  by  the  English 
Friends,  and  all  of  his  children  are  now  in  Christian  homes 

41 


of  their  own.  I  wish  I  could  show  you  the  difference  be- 
tween Shukrey's  home  and  the  surrounding  ones.  The  chil- 
dren of  Egypt  and  of  Palestine  are  so  shamefully  neglected 
and  dirty  and  know  how  to  do  nothing  but  ask  for  "back- 
sheesh."  They  crawl  into  dirty  holes  with  no  air  or  light, 
and  lie  on  the  bare  stone  floor,  or  a  heap  of  rags,  to  sleep. 
The  home  in  which  Shukrey's  five  children  were  being 
brought  up  was  very  different.  He  owns  a  substantial 
stone  house,  with  large  windows,  a  nice  parlor  and  even  a 
piano.  I  never  saw  a  prettier  child  than  his  three-year  old 
girl,  and  she  was  honestly  the  first  native  baby  I  have 
ever  seen  in  Palestine  that  I  wanted  to  take  up.  She  was 
dressed  in  a  plain  gingham  dress  and  her  hair  nicely  combed 
and  absolutely  clean.  We  went  to  Shukrey's  house  to  tea 
one  afternoon  and  were  served  with  tea  and  home-made 
American  cake;  his  seven-year-old  boy  helped  serve  us  and 
did  it  as  nicely  as  any  American  boy  could.  His  three  girls 
are  at  school  in  Ramallah  where  we  saw  them  and  they  are 
growing  up  to  be  nice,  clean,  Christian  housekeepers  and 
wives  and  mothers.  Thirty  years  ago  when  Eli  and  Sybil 
Jones  came  here  to  start  this  school  Shukrey's  father  was 
their  dragoman,  and  helped  them  in  their  negotiations  for 
the  ground.  Now  they  have  fifty  girls  and  thirty  boys  in 
the  mission  school,  and  also  maintain  a  day  school,  church 
and  Sunday  school,  which  has  215  scholars.  All  the  teach- 
ers but  one  are  natives ;  even  the  matron  is  a  native  Syrian, 
and  has  been  in  the  school  for  twenty-two  years,  well- 
beloved  by  all,  a  splendid,  capable,  unselfish  woman. 

In  the  morning  we  took  up  our  ride  again,  going  that 
day  thirty-two  miles  to  Nablus,  which  was  the  ancient  city 
of  Shechem.  On  the  way  we  pass  an  ancient  watch-tower 
which  marks  Bethel,  where  Jacob  had  his  vision,  and  which 
was  the  head  of  the  Northern  Kingdom.  This  was  the  only 
site  mentioned  in  the  Bible  that  we  saw  until  we  came  to 
Jacob's  well,  near  Shechem.  But  the  ride  was  a  beautiful 
one  and  increased  our  impression  that  Palestine  was  really 
a  goodly  land.  Much  of  this  part  is  covered  with  fine  old 
olive  trees,  and  wheat,  grapes,  etc.,  grow  here  in  abundance. 
A  little  Yankee  ingenuity  could  irrigate  this  whole  country 
and  make  it  "blossom  as  the  rose,"  as  springs  and  wells  are 

42 


plentiful.  The  people  work  hard  and  I  could  see  no  reason 
for  their  being  so  poor,  except  for  the  "heel  of  itheir 
oppressor,"  Turkey. 

Jacob's  well  is,  like  many  other  places,  a  disappoint- 
ment, for  it  is  covered  with  a  cheap  little  Jewish  church, 
and  you  pay  a  priest  a  franc  to  lower  a  candle  through  a 
hole  in  the  floor  down  to  the  water  in  the  well  so  that  you 
may  see  it.  This  is  the  same  well  where  Jesus  sat  and 
talked  to  the  Samaritan  woman,  and  how  much  more  fitting 
it  would  be  to  have  only  a  simple  stone  curbing  here. 
Some  fine  stones  are  here,  the  remains  of  a  Crusaders' 
church,  and  the  Jews  are  building  a  pretentious  church 
with  these  remnants.  A  mile  further  we  came  to  Nablus, 
passing  on  the  way  the  place  where  Elijah  called  the  Samar- 
itans together  and  read  the  blessings  from  Mt.  Gerizim, 
while  Elisha  read  the  cursings  from  Mt.  Ebal.  I  should 
judge  they  were  half  a  mile  apart,  yet  Mr.  Bailey  has  tried  it 
and  says  it  is  very  easy  for  people  in  the  valley  to  hear  voices 
from  either  point.  After  the  captivity,  Ephriam  possessed 
this  land  and  intermarried  with  the  original  inhabitants, 
forming  a  sect  known  as  the  Samaritans,  who  have  lived  here 
ever  since  and  have  not  allowed  intermarriage  with  other 
tribes.  For  a  time  they  were  very  strong  and  maintained 
the  Southern  Kingdom  of  Israel,  with  their  seat  at  Shechem. 
But  Omri,  one  of  their  great  rulers,  saw  that  being  in  a  val- 
ley, the  place  would  be  hard  to  defend  so  he  moved  the  town 
to  Samaria,  six  miles  further  north.  This  is  now  only  the 
site  of  interesting  ruins  while  the  Samaritans  occupy  the 
original  town  of  Shechem.  Girl  babies  are  scarce  among  them 
and  as  a  people  they  are  rapidly  dying  out,  for  the  young  men 
cannot  find  Samaritan  wives.  Now  they  number  but  169, 
and  have  a  high  priest  who  claims  to  be  a  lineal  descendant 
of  the  tribe  of  Levi.  A  little  girl  of  twelve  was  to  be  mar- 
ried shortly  to  a  man  in  the  forties,  who. had  been  waiting 
a  long  time  for  a  girl  to  arrive  at  marriageable  age.  They 
are  a  nice  looking  lot  of  people,  whiter,  cleaner  and  more 
respectable  than  their  neighbors.  On  the  Friday  before 
Easter  they  still  go  up  on  Mt.  Gerizim  and  celebrate  the 
Passover. 

From  Shechem  we  took  an  excursion  the  next  day  to 


the  ruins  of  Samaria.  The  28th  chapter  of  Isaiah  is  the 
prophet's  condemnation  of  it,  and  it  was  just  as  he  described 
it  "the  crown  of  a  fat  valley."  It  stands  on  the  crown  of 
a  lone  hill  in  the  midst  of  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  val- 
leys, irrigated  by  countless  gushing  springs,  and  covered 
with  olive  groves  and  wheat  fields.  Before  the  days  of 
long-range  guns  its  position  must  have  been  well  nigh  im- 
pregnable except  by  siege,  and  it  was  in  that  way  it  was 
captured  by  the  Assyrians  after  they  had  besieged  it  for 
three  years.  Ahab  built  a  palace  there  on  the  ruins  of 
Omri's,  which  Herod  in  his  turn  covered  with  one  to  the 
divine  Augusta.  In  the  last  three  years  all  this  has  been 
excavated  and  we  saw  the  original  Omri  walls,  the  better 
masonry  of  Ahab,  and  the  two  large  towers  before  which 
the  Assyrians  were  encamped  when  they  heard  the  mighty 
army  of  the  Lord  in  the  heavens  and  fled  in  terror.  Above 
this  was  the  Herodian  stones  showing  that  a  magnificent 
building  must  have  crowned  this  highest  point  in  the  val- 
ley. To  reach  this  we  traversed  on  our  donkeys  the  same 
road  which  the  Romans  did,  between  two  rows  of  columns, 
the  tops  of  which  are  still  standing.  A  short  way  from 
this  is  the  ruin  of  Herod's  basilica,  or  judgment  hall,  the 
immense  pillars  still  standing  on  the  mosaic  floor,  also 
showing  plainly  the  circular  seats  of  the  judges.  Here 
also  are  the  remains  of  the  ancient  stadium. 

Leaving  Nablus  the  next  morning  we  drove  thirty- 
five  miles,  a  hard  drive  across  the  plains  of  Sharon  to  Zam- 
marin,  a  Jewish  colony  established  by  Baron  Rothschild. 
Here  we  spent  the  night  in  a  miserable  inn  and  started  early 
the  next  morning  for  Haifa.  This  country  is  not  closely 
connected  with  Christ  and  we  passed  quickly  through  it. 
It  was  the  stronghold  of  the  Crusaders  and  at  Ahlit  we  saw 
the  remains  of  their  fortress  which  was  the  last  stand  they 
made.  Haifa  was  the  home  of  Elijah  for  three  years  and  a 
monastery  is  built  over  the  cave  where  he  is  supposed  to 
have  lived,  while  another  cave  having  the  same  claim  to 
fame,  has  been  turned  into  a  mosque  by  the  Mohammedans, 
for  Elijah  was  also  one  of  their  prophets.  Both  these  are 
on  the  seaward  slope  of  Mt.  Carmel  which  is  visible  for  a 
great  distance.  At  the  time  of  Elijah  the  largest  city  of 

44 


this  neighborhood  was  across  the  bay  at  Akka,  so  that 
Elijah  was  able  to  live  here  in  considerable  retirement. 
Carmel  is  extolled  very  beautifully  in  Isaiah  35,  2,  and  songs 
of  Solomon  7-5.  We  have  begun  now  to  see  Mt.  Hermon, 
frequently  mentioned  in  the  Bible  and  reminding  us  Cali- 
fornians  of  Mt.  Shasta,  because  it  has  the  same  trick  of 
showing  its  snow-covered  head  at  unexpected  turns.  Here, 
too,  we  see  for  the  first  time  the  mountains  of  Lebanon. 
We  have  so  long  been  accustomed  to  the  absence  of  any- 
thing but  fruit  trees,  that  it  was  refreshing  to  see  the  oaks 
on  the  plains  of  Acre,  trees  very  much  like  our  California 
live  oaks,  but  scrubbier.  After  spending  Sunday  at  Haifa 
we  take  up  our  march  to  Nazareth,  having  the  long  slope 
of  Carmel  in  view  all  the  time. 

As  we  drew  near  to  Nazareth  our  leader  took  us  to  a 
hillside  from  which  we  had  a  very  comprehensive  view  of 
the  country,  and  pointed  out  to  us  many  places  of  interest, 
saying  that  probably  Joseph  frequently  brought  the  boy 
Jesus  here  to  teach  him  the  history  of  his  people  from  this 
great  text  book  spread  out  before  him.  The  view  is  splen- 
did in  itself,  here  the  fertile  plains  of  Esdraelon  were  spread 
out,  backed  by  the  blue  mountains  of  Gilead,  but  it  is  in- 
teresting also  because  so  much  of  historical  interest  is  vis- 
ible from  here,  and  especially  the  sites  of  many  of  the  Old 
Testament  stories.  On  the  extreme  western  horizon  are 
the  long  flat  lines  of  Mt.  Carmel,  where  Elijah  had  his  test 
with  the  prophets  of  Baal,  calling  down  fire  from  heaven, 
which  consumed  his  sacrifice,  and  lower  down  is  the  Brook 
Kishon  where  he  slew  the  prophets  of  Baal.  Following 
along  the  line  of  the  mountains  we  see  the  Megiddo  Pass, 
through  which  the  old  road  runs  which  led  from  Lebanon 
to  Jerusalem,  and  where  the  good  King  Josiah  was  killed 
in  battle  with  Pharaoh  Nechcoh  of  Egypt  (2  Kings  23,  29). 
Moving  on  a  little  farther  east  we  come  to  Mount  Tabor, 
to  the  foot  of  which  Sisera  and  the  Caanites  met  defeat  at 
the  hands  of  Deborah,  the  prophetess  and  Joan  of  Arc 
of  Israel,  and  Barak.  Near  by  is  Jezreel,  the  residence  of 
Ahab.  Jezebel  and  Naboth  (Kings  21).  This  story  in- 
volved a  principle  then  new  to  the  Israelitish  theology,  i.  e., 
that  God  is  a  God  of  the  common  people,  and  will  defend 

45 


them  against  wicked  kings.  Still  farther  east  is  the  site 
of  Gideon's  well  where  he  selected  his  "band"  by  their 
manner  of  drinking  (Judges  7).  This  site  is  on  Mt.  Gil- 
boa,  where  Saul  met  defeat,  the  dramatic  account  of  which 
we  read  in  Sam.  28,  and  just  beyond  is  Endor  where  Saul 
consulted  the  witch.  On  the  other  side  of  Jordan  was  a 
Greek  colony  called  Decapolis,  degenerate  in  all  the  vices 
of  a  decadent  wealth  and  civilization.  From  this  a  Roman 
road  led  across  the  plains  to  Acre.  On  the  same  plains 
Napoleon's  Marshal  Kleber  won  his  first  victory,  and  here 
was  the  greatest  battlefield  of  the  Crusaders. 

Resuming  our  ride  we  soon  round  a  sharp  turn  and 
come  upon  Nazareth,  nestling  in  the  hills,  white  and  clean 
and  pretty  at  a  distance,  but  like  most  of  these  Oriental 
cities,  bringing  disenchantment  on  nearer  approach.  It 
is  the  same  old  story  of  narrow,  filthy  streets,  barking  dogs, 
braying  donkeys,  babbling  men  and  begging  children.  One 
dark-eyed  girl  came  to  us  and  said:  "Good  evening,  you 
American  lady ;  you  my  sister."  Her  language  would  never 
"have  been  took"  for  a  native  American's,  but  she  thought 
it  would.  She  followed  us  around  all  the  time  we  were  here, 
trying  to  sell  us  hand-made  lace.  The  missions  in  Pales- 
tine teach  the  girls  to  make  it,  and  some  of  it  is  pretty  and 
very  substantial. 

At  Nazareth,  as  everywhere  in  Palestine,  we  found 
many  traditional  sites  of  the  life  of  Christ  and  almost  all  of 
them  covered  with  cheap,  tawdry  churches,  gaudily  deco- 
rated and  filled  with  terrifying  pictures  of  the  Holy  Family. 
Over  the  cave  pointed  out  as  the  home  of  Joseph  and  Mary, 
a  fine  church  is  being  built  on  the  foundations  of  an  old  Cru- 
sader church.  In  this  is  the  only  real  good  picture  we  saw  in 
any  of  these  churches,  of  the  Holy  Family,  and  painted  by 
an  unknown  French  artist.  In  the  center  of  the  town  is  the 
Virgin's  Fountain,  and  being  the  only  one  here,  it  is  the 
one  to  which  Mary  must  have  come,  bearing  her  water-pot 
and  probably  bringing  the  infant  Jesus  just  as  these  wo- 
men do  today.  We  saw  one  fill  her  water-jar,  balance  it  on 
her  head,  then  reaching  down  without  stooping,  she  drew 
a  three-year-old  child  to  her  shoulder,  where  he  promptly 
got  a  good  hold  on  her  head  and  rode  along  without  the 
necessity  of  his  mother  holding  him. 

46 


After  a  half-day  and  a  night  in  Nazareth  we  went  on 
to  Galilee.  The  word  Galilee  means  "a  ring  or  circle"  and 
this  province  probably  takes  its  name  from  the  fact  that 
it  is  on  the  outer  circle,  or  frontier  of  Palestine.  It  is 
bounded  by  the  Jordan,  and  by  the  great  plains  of  Esdraelon, 
Marmitine  and  Latomic  and  is  the  only  volcanic  part  of 
Palestine,  the  great  lava  rocks  of  which  we  see  so  many 
probably  coming  from  the  Horns  of  Hattin,  which  we 
climbed;  an  extinct  volcano  and  by  some  believed  to  have 
been  the  location  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  There  are 
also  more  springs  in  this  part  and  they,  with  the  heavy 
dew,  keep  the  vegetation  always  green.  At  Bethsaida,  on 
the  northern  shore  of  the  lake,  there  are  seven  large  springs 
coming  up  within  fifteen  feet  of  each  other.  The  population 
today  is  only  25,000,  while  in  the  time  of  Christ  four  or 
five  hundred  thousand  people  lived  in  nine  towns  sur- 
rounding the  lake.  The  Galileans  were  a  sturdy  tribe  of 
Jews  who  very  strictly  maintained  their  identity  among  the 
Romans  and  Greeks  that  clustered  around  these  parts. 
The  town  of  Capernaum  was  situated  at  a  convergence  of 
the  roads  that  led  from  Lebanon  on  the  north  to  Egypt, 
and  the  road  from  Decapolis  to  the  seaport  at  Acre.  So 
Christ  had  a  good  opportunity  to  observe  the  habits  and 
customs  of  people  far  removed  from  His  own,  and  we  can 
see  this  influence  in  many  of  His  figures  of  speech.  The 
sterling  qualities  and  fighting  independence  developed  by 
their  efforts  to  keep  themselves  separate  from  the  too  luxur- 
ious foreigners,  made  the  Galileans  just  the  kind  of  men 
Christ  needed  for  His  disciples,  and  He  chose  all  of  them 
save  Judas  from  this  hardy,  impetuous  people.  One  ap- 
preciates what  they  must  have  been  when  we  have  seen 
the  lithe,  tireless  men  who  drive  their  great  awkward  boats 
through  these  waters.  Four  men  rowed  a  boat  containing 
thirteen  people  for  five  hours  almost  continuously  and  sang 
and  shouted  without  the  least  sign  of  fatigue.  We  went 
first  to  see  the  site  of  Magdala  and  Capernaum.  No  won- 
der Christ  "loved  to  be"  here.  We  rowed  on  the  sea  and 
lived  on  its  shores,  and  saw  it  at  its  best  with  just  enough 
of  the  sudden  breezes  ruffling  it  at  night  to  give  us  an  idea 
of  the  sudden  squalls  that  come  upon  it  now  as  in  the  time 

47 


of  Christ.  Surrounded  by  green,  rugged  hills,  with  snow- 
capped Mt.  Hermon  in  the  distance,  thirteen  miles  long 
and  six  wide,  blue  Galilee  lies  like  a  great  blue  turquoise 
in  its  green  setting.  We  stayed  at  Tiberias,  now  the  only 
town  on  the  lake,  a  small  squalid  village  of  40,000  inhab- 
itants, the  black  towers  of  the  old  walls  still  showing  as 
we  approached  the  town.  All  that  is  left  of  Capernaum 
is  the  ruins  of  a  great  cathedral  or  synagogue,  which  seems 
to  clinch  the  argument  of  the  archaeologists  that  this  is 
really  the  site  of  the  home  of  Peter,  James,  and  John.  There 
is  only  a  motley  collection  of  broken  pillars,  capitols  and 
block,  but  they  show  that  a  building  was  here  of  the  finest 
Roman  type,  such  as  the  one  mentioned  in  the  Bible  as 
the  "synagogue"  in  which  Christ  taught.  This  has  been 
excavated  by  the  Palestine  Excavation  Society,  and  they 
have  left  it  in  charge  of  a  cranky  old  priest  who  takes  your 
camera  away  from  you  if  you  try  to  take  pictures.  There 
is  not  a  great  deal  historical  to  tell  about  Galilee,  but  it  is 
a  wonderful  experience  to  be  here  and  to  feel  the  influence 
of  the  blue  Genesaret,  and  to  know  that  here  was  the 
favorite  place  of  Christ  in  His  mature  life.  We  have  no 
record  of  His  being  in  Jerusalem  but  seven  times;  two  of 
these  in  boyhood  and  the  last  time  when  He  went  to  stand 
trial,  but  here  in  Galilee  He  lived  and  worked  and  "loved 
to  be."  We  noticed  here,  too,  several  very  beautiful  women 
who  might  well  have  served  for  models  for  some  of  the 
famous  Madonnas.  So  on  the  whole  we  were  very  sorry 
to  leave  Tiberias,  especially  when  we  remembered  that  we 
had  spent  our  last  night  in  the  Holy  Land.  The  longing 
will  always  be  with  us  to  come  back  again.  Papa  brought 
his  fishpole  and  some  flies  all  the  way  from  America  that  he 
might  fish  in  this  lake,  but  he  "toiled  all  day  and  took  noth- 
ing," as  other  more  experienced  men  have  done.  Honestly 
I  sat  on  the  shore  and  prayed  that  by  some  miraculous  in- 
terposition of  Providence,  a  fish  might  get  on  his  hook,  but 
none  came  and  he  was  very  much  disappointed. 

On  Thursday  morning  we  took  a  boat  at  seven  o'clock 
to  ride  nine  miles  to  the  railroad  station  at  Yarmak  on 
the  Southern  end  of  the  lake.  You  should  have  seen  our 
conveyance.  If  there  is  any  kind  of  locomotion  we  have  not 

48 


tried,  we  have  not  discovered  it  yet.  Sand-carts,  camels, 
donkeys,  Cunarders,  Russian  freight  boats,  sail  boats,  row 
boats,  a  pole-ferry  on  the  Nile,  and  a  steam  launch  on 
Galilee!  (We  have  not  as  yet  ridden  a  rail  but  the  backs 
of  some  of  the  donkeys  were  a  good  equivalent).  We  did 
not  ride  in  the  steam  launch ;  it  simply  pulled  a  line  of  row 
boats,  in  number  according  as  the  number  of  passengers. 
Our  "train"  had  five  boats,  with  a  picturesque  Syrian  in 
the  stern  of  each  to  hold  the  rope  connecting  the  next  boat. 
It  was  a  delightful  ride  in  the  early  morning  and  we  shall 
never  forget  it.  Neither  shall  we  soon  forget  the  wait  for 
the  train  at  Yarmak.  These  Oriental  trains  seem  to  run  at 
their  own  sweet  pleasure,  although  they  publish  an  elab- 
orate schedule.  Our  train  was  due  at  nine  o'clock  but 
Shukrey  was  afraid  it  might  come  early  so  we  were  there 
at  eight-thirty.  At  11:25,  after  waiting  in  a  shed  all  that 
time,  surrounded  by  mangy  dogs  and  fleas,  we  were  glad  to 
see  a  chain  of  smoke  coming  over  the  plain,  indicating  the 
road  over  which  our  train  was  leisurely  wending  its  way. 
That  is  the  other  side  of  traveling  in  Palestine.  But  the 
ride  was  beautiful  up  the  gorge  of  the  Yarmak,  resembling 
on  a  small  scale  the  Grand  Canyon  of  the  Colorado.  We 
crept  up  an  elevation  of  2800  feet  in  three  hours,  but  it  was 
9:25  P.  M.  before  we  found  ourselves  in  the  Victoria  Hotel 
of  Damascus,  the  largest  town  in  Syria,  having  300,000 
population.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest,  if  not  the  oldest,  Orien- 
tal city,  and  its  street  life  is  typical,  so  let  us  take  a  walk 
and  see  something  of  the  life  of  these  people.  We  turn 
the  corner  from  our  hotel  and  are  in  the  main  street,  pos- 
sibly twenty-five  feet  wide,  including  sidewalks,  which 
are  simply  two  feet  of  cobblestones  raised  slightly  above 
the  street  and  no  one  pays  much  attention  to  them.  In 
this  narrow  street  are  double  tracks  for  electric  cars,  so 
we  must  watch  closely  and  dodge  quickly,  or  some  of  this 
numerous  mixture  of  laden  camels,  donkeys,  or  men  will 
push  us  under  the  wheels  of  the  "modern  juggernaut." 
Here  comes  a  horse  staggering  along  under  the  weight  of 
six  tree  trunks,  three  on  each  side,  each  probably  twelve 
feet  long  and  a  foot  thick.  Step  aside  quickly  or  you  will 
be  flattened  against  the  wall  by  this  train  of  six  lordly  cam- 

49 


els,  bearing  on  either  side  an  enormous  bag  of  grain  which 
has  been  trodden  by  the  oxen  but  not  yet  separated ;  dodge 
again,  this  time  a  magnificent  team  of  black  Arabian  horses. 
Look  out!  Here  is  a  train  of  donkeys  laden  with  wool 
which  protrudes  on  each  side  at  least  three  feet,  so  that 
it  takes  six  feet  for  him  to  pass  in,  not  to  mention  the  poor 
little  donk.  Interspersed  with  all  this  you  must  remember 
is  a  motley  crowd  of  people  who  must  have  space  as  well 
as  you.  Suppose  we  look  at  the  costume  of  this  lordly 
Bedouin,  swinging  along  in  dignified  indifference.  His 
chief  garment  is  a  coarse  woolen  sack  with  holes  cut 
through  the  top,  much  like  a  Chinaman's  blouse  but  much 
looser  fitting,  fuller,  longer,  and  with  sleeves  not  so  pro- 
nounced. Some  of  them  aspire  to  socks,  but  more  of  them 
wear  nothing  on  their  feet  but  a  pair  of  ill-fitting  slippers, 
the  heels  mashed  in  for  convenience.  His  headdress  is  the 
most  distinguishing  thing  about  him,  being  a  sort  of  gaudy 
table-scarf  held  in  place  by  two  coils  of  coarse  black  yarn 
tied  together  in  the  back,  and  a  fringe  hanging  down  the 
back.  A  Turkish  soldier  dressed  in  rough  brown  English 
clothes  brushes  against  you,  and  you  bump  into  a  Syrian 
woman  who  we  can  well  imagine  looks  from  behind  her 
heavy  veil  with  contempt  on  us  hare-faced  American  wo- 
men. They  say  it  requires  nineteen  yards  of  goods  to  make 
their  full  dress  but  it  certainly  would  not  require  much 
of  a  dressmaker.  We  notice  that  these  Syrian  women  go 
with  their  faces  entirely  covered,  while  in  Egypt  the  wo- 
men went  half  veiled,  their  beautiful  brown  eyes  peering 
out  above  their  veils.  Here  is  one  with  a  fat  bare-foot  baby 
balanced  on  her  shoulder,  the  baby  clinging  to  the  folds  of 
her  shawl  for  a  precarious  support.  Here  is  one  of  the 
burden  bearers,  a  bare-footed,  ragged  man  carrying  a  box 
four  feet  square  on  his  shoulders  by  means  of  a  rope  around 
his  forehead.  Here  comes  the  garbage  wagon,  get  out  of  the 
way.  What  do  you  suppose  it  is?  A  horse  with  a  sort  of 
Chinese-matting  bag  thrown  across  his  back  and  a  stick 
underneath  his  stomach  to  keep  the  bags  from  bumping 
him.  Into  these  bags  they  shovel  garbage  until  the  poor 
beast  can  hardly  stagger.  At  last  we  have  come  to  the 
bazaars,  for  which  Damascus  is  famous ;  here  we  can  find 

50 


anything  Oriental  from  a  Boukara  rug  to  an  Arab  saddle. 
Brass  work,  Syrian  embroidery,  antiques,  silks,  are  all 
spread  out  in  an  array  to  catch  the  tourists'  eye.  Let  the 
Yankee  who  thinks  he  can  get  the  best  of  a  bargain  with 
these  astute  Syrians,  look  to  his  laurels,  he  will  probably 
come  out  richer  in  experience  and  poorer  in  pocket.  Each 
little  box,  not  more  than  twelve  feet  in  floor  space,  is  a  shop, 
and  most  of  them  confine  their  stock  to  one  line  of  goods. 
In  these  they  can  store  a  large  stock  of  goods,  since  the 
merchant  only  needs  room  to  squat  on  his  platform  while 
the  customer  stands  in  the  street,  which  is  covered  over 
with  a  metal  or  wood  roof.  Here  is  a  delicatessen ;  let  us 
see  what  these  Syrians  eat.  Their  pastry  is  very  rich  and 
nice  but  they  soak  it  in  a  peculiar  kind  of  spiced  syrup  and 
put  it  out  in  great  pans  for  sale.  They  have  cheese  pie 
something  like  ours  and  macaroni  and  cocoanut  twisted 
together,  spread  with  butter  and  baked.  Then  here  is  one 
of  their  favorite  delicacies  in  individual  blue  bowls,  rice 
soaked  in  sweetened  sour  milk.  It  looks  very  appetizing 
dressed  up  with  shredded  cocoanut  and  dried  orange  peel. 
Here  in  a  great  brass  kettle  is  a  stew  of  meat  and  vegetables 
of  every  kind  under  the  earth  and  above  it.  But  they  use 
scarcely  any  potatoes  in  anything,  whether  because  they 
are  scarce  or  because  they  do  not  like  them  I  do  not  know. 
Then  they  have  all  kinds  of  highly  colored  candy,  some 
of  it  very  good. 

Here  is  a  chair  shop  which  is  a  factory  and  retail  sales- 
room in  one.  Think  what  a  process  a  chair  goes  through 
in  our  country  before  it  reaches  the  customer.  Lumber 
must  be  cut,  sawed,  planed,  before  it  comes  to  the  factory, 
there  it  goes  through  a  dozen  different  hands,  and  is  finally 
passed  from  the  wholesaler  to  the  retailer.  See  how  simple 
the  process  is  here.  The  man  buys  a  donkey-load  of  trees 
with  just  the  branches  trimmed  off.  He  stores  them  away 
overhead  and  gets  out  his  machinery.  This  is  a  sort  of  slid- 
ing vise  with  two  opposite  iron  pegs  which  hold  the  stick. 
Then  he  loops  the  waxed  string  of  the  bow  over  the  stick 
and  by  pulling  this  back  and  forth  turns  the  stock  round 
while  he  cuts  off  the  bark  with  a  chisel  which  he  holds  in 
his  naked  toes ;  in  this  same  way  he  can  make  all  kinds  of 

51 


fancy  rings  on  the  legs  and  cross-pieces  of  the  chair.  These 
properly  prepared  he  puts  them  together,  and  braids  a  reed 
bottom  into  the  chair,  then  oils  or  paints  it  and  hangs  it  up 
to  await  the  customer. 

A  little  farther  on  is  a  brass  factory,  which  is  one  of 
the  few  places  where  several  persons  work  on  the  same 
article.  The  brass  is  moulded  into  shape  on  asphalt,  then 
beaten  and  the  figures  sketched  on  free-hand,  with  ink. 
This  much  is  done  by  men,  but  little  children  from  six  to 
fourteen  finish  them.  The  ordinary  brass  work  is  done 
somewhat  like  our  children  do  at  home,  but  that  inlaid  with 
silver  or  copper  is  more  intricate.  These  materials  come 
in  thin  wire  and  they  hold  this  against  the  article  with  one 
hand  while  they  hammer  it  in  with  the  other,  and 
they  are  very  adept  at  making  it  smooth  and  even. 
These  poor  little  youngsters  get  five  and  seven  cents  a  day 
for  this  work.  One  more  industry  remains  to  be  described, 
that  of  house-building.  They  use  the  unhewn  trunks  of 
trees  for  frame  work  for  even  three-story  houses  with  no 
stronger  uprights  at  the  corners.  Then  they  fill  in  the 
space  with  mud  and  chopped  straw  and  put  on  a  thin  coat 
of  plaster.  They  say  they  will  last  well  but  a  half  sized 
earthquake  would  certainly  have  a  picnic  with  them. 

Leaving  Damascus  early  in  the  morning  by  train,  we 
traveled  to  Baalback  where  are  the  ruins  of  the  Temple  of 
the  Sun,  one  of  the  finest  structures  of  any  time,  and  as 
well  preserved  as  any  that  have  come  down  to  us.  The 
valley  leading  up  to  it  reminded  us  of  the  Santa  Clara 
Valley  at  home  when  the  fruit  trees  are  in  full  bloom  in 
the  spring,  for  they  grow  every  kind  of  deciduous  fruit 
here,  and  it  was  blossom  time.  From  the  parapet  of  the 
temple  the  view  was  beyond  description  as  we  watched  the 
sun  go  down  behind  distant  snow-clad  mountains,  dotting 
the  green  hills  with  cloud-shadows  and  covering  with  a 
purple  mantle  the  blossom-carpeted  valley.  From  quite  a 
distance  we  could  see  the  two  fragments  of  colonnades 
that  are  left  standing,  and  in  their  setting  of  fruit  blossoms 
they  make  a  very  striking  picture.  Nine  acres  of  ground 
here  are  covered  with  these  magnificent  remnants  of  marble 
and  anywhere  you  tread  you  are  liable  to  come  upon  the 

52 


finest  samples  of  carving,  gigantic  lions'  heads  hewn  out 
of  stone,  magnificent  friezes,  and  dainty  carvings  of  grapes 
and  cupids  and  storks !  It  is  said  to  have  taken  two  hun- 
dred years  to  build  this  grand  temple,  and  we  could  imagine 
that  it  must  have  been  a  thing  of  beauty.  The  enormous 
stones  in  the  retaining  wall  and  foundations  are  justly 
famous  for  their  size,  three  of  them  weighing  seventy  tons 
each.  Near  by,  in  a  quarry,  we  saw  the  "stone  which  the 
builders  rejected,"  lying  hewn  and  already  for  removal  but 
for  some  reason  left  here  useless  through  all  these  years. 

During  our  ride  from  Baalback  to  Beirut  we  could 
almost  imagine  we  were  in  the  Sierras,  except  for  the  ab- 
sence of  fir  trees.  The  mountains  up  which  our  train 
climbed  were  much  the  same,  and  instead  of  the  fir  trees  we 
saw  the  "cedars  of  Lebanon."  Two  hours  after  we  left  the 
blossoming  fruit  trees,  we  were  in  the  midst  of  snow,  cat- 
aracts of  ice  cold  water  dashing  in  the  washes  over  which 
we  passed.  Thus  we  climbed  to  a  level  of  4880  feet  above  the 
sea,  and  shortly  began  to  get  glimpses  of  the  Mediterranean, 
to  which  we  descended  very  abruptly  by  a  rachet  and  pinion 
railroad  that  zigzaged  down  the  mountain  to  the  tree-em- 
bowered town  of  Beirut. 

I  find  that  this  is  Monday,  April  I7th,  and  that  I  am 
several  days  behind  with  my  diary,  but  I  have  had  good 
cause.  Easter  is  past,  and  I  hope  never  to  have  another  like 
this  one.  We  are  on  a  trim  little  French  passenger  boat, 
the  Niger,  going  from  Beirut  to  Constantinople,  and  the 
trip  has  been  stormy  and  spent  by  most  of  us  in  our  berths. 
To  use  a  slang  expression,  Papa  is  a  regular  Jonah,  he  never 
ventures  on  the  sea  but  that  a  storm  comes  up.  Our  con- 
ductor says,  "Oh,  you  will  not  be  sick  this  time,  it  is  always 
smooth  on  that  stretch,"  but  immediately  when  we  get  to 
it  "a  wind  arises  and  there  is  a  great  sea."  Poor  Papa  gets 
the  worst  of  it,  with  me  a  poor  second,  and  Mama  the  best 
sailor  of  us  all.  Now  we  are  anchored  in  the  bay  of  Vathy, 
an  unimportant  town  on  the  Island  of  Samos.  Since  we 
have  reached  the  Aegean  sea  and  have  been  surrounded  by 
islands,  everybody  is  beginning  to  stir  around  again  and 
be  happy.  But  I  have  gotten  ahead  of  our  travels.  Mama 
was  not  well  at  Beirut  and  I  stayed  in  with  her  most  of  the 

53 


time,  but  there  was  not  a  great  deal  to  see.  One  afternoon 
we  went  to  the  Presbyterian  mission  and  printing  press, 
and  another  to  the  Protestant  college,  the  largest  institution 
of  its  kind  in  the  Orient.  It  has  eighteen  good  stone  build- 
ings, eight  hundred  scholars,  good  laboratories  and  a  fine 
equipment  for  its  work,  not  the  least  important  of  which  is 
its  president,  Mr.  Howard  P.  Bliss,  a  splendid  man  physi- 
cally, intellectually  and  spiritually,  and  the  son  of  the  first 
president  of  the  college.  His  study,  though  plain,  was  cer- 
tainly an  inspiration,  its  walls  lined  with  cases  of  excellent 
books,  their  titles  and  subject  matter  indicating  an  owner 
of  broad  and  varied  culture,  and  above  them  portraits  and 
photographs  of  a  hundred  noted  men,  many  of  them  per- 
sonally autographed,  Roosevelt,  McKinley,  Cleveland, 
Whittier,  Beethoven,  Goethe,  Froebel,  Macauley  and  so  on 
through  a  long  list;  anybody  could  get  inspiration  from 
such  surroundings  as  these.  President  Bliss  is  on  the  boat 
with  us  on  his  way  to  preside  at  a  missionary  conference 
at  Constantinople,  and  we  hope  to  hear  him  lecture. 

We  have  now  left  Syria  behind,  and  the  only  thing  left 
to  mention  is  the  difference  we  have  noticed  in  the  peoples 
of  the  different  places  we  have  visited  so  far.  The  Egyptians 
are  a  stolid  race  and  seem  to  partake  of  the  nature  of  their 
landscape  and  camels — quiet,  patient  and  dignified.  The 
natives  of  Palestine  appear  physically  much  the  same,  but 
even  at  Joppa  we  see  a  difference,  such  a  babbling,  gabbling 
pandemonium  of  shouting,  gesticulating  Arabs  as  greets 
your  ears  and  you  never  lose  it  again  until  well  out  of 
Beirut.  You  are  sure  often  times  that  a  fight  is  imminent, 
but  it  is  only  a  friendly  conversation,  soon  each  raises  the 
other's  hand  to  his  lips,  they  depart,  and  "silence  falls  like  a 
poultice  on  the  sore  of  sound."  Take,  for  example,  Shuk- 
rey,  our  guide,  a  Christian,  educated  Syrian,  and  about  as 
quiet  and  patient  a  fellow  as  you  could  find  anywhere,  but 
sometimes  you  would  be  sure  he  was  going  to  hit  the 
native  he  was  talking  to.  At  Damascus  the  train  was 
crowded  and  though  Shukrey  had  a  first-class  ticket,  the 
conductor  refused  to  let  him  occupy  the  one  seat  left  in  our 
compartment.  Shukrey  pushed  him  aside  and  sat  down  in 
the  seat,  evidently  believing  in  the  adage  that  possession 

54 


is  nine  points  in  law.  All  the  time  he  was  keeping  up  a 
continual  stream  of  Arabic,  and  the  conductor  and  several 
other  officials  gesticulating  wildly  and  trying  to  out-yell 
Shukrey,  who  from  his  point  of  vantage  kept  up  the  ear- 
splitting  argument.  Suddenly  the  whole  avalanche  of  talk 
stopped,  the  train  started  and  quiet  reigned  until  the  next 
station,  where  it  began  again.  But  this  time  it  was  differ- 
ent. Shukrey  found  that  a  tourist  gentleman  and  his  wife 
had  to  ride  in  the  second-class  because  the  first-class  was 
filled,  and  he  gladly  gave  up  his  seat  to  the  lady  without 
further  discussion,  and  went  with  his  recent  antagonist, 
the  conductor,  to  find  a  seat  for  the  gentleman.  But  the 
Galileans  seemed  to  be  somewhat  different,  not  so  noisy  or 
vociferous,  the  men  were  graceful  and  lithe,  and  many  of 
the  women  had  Madonna  faces,  in  fact  they  seemed  a 
cleaner,  more  wholesome  race. 

After  leaving  Vathy  we  sailed  in  the  night  to  Smyrna, 
from  whence  we  went  by  rail  to  Ephesus.  Just  before  leav- 
ing the  boat  we  were  given  a  splendid  lecture  by  Prof. 
Soares  of  the  Chicago  University,  who  is  the  head  of  the 
Dunning  camping  party.  Ephesus  was  the  center  of  Paul's 
third  missionary  campaign,  at  that  time  a  great  city,  and 
the  center  of  Greek  culture  and  Roman  art,  also  important 
commercially.  Here  the  commerce  of  the  East  and  West 
met,  all  the  vices,  aspirations,  etc.,  of  a  great  meeting-place 
of  the  nations  seethed  here.  Paul  went  first  to  the  syna- 
gogue of  the  Jews,  for  the  synagogue  was  always  open  to 
him ;  services  were  not  catalogued  so  when  Paul  arrived,  by 
his  knowledge  and  adroitness,  he  could  always  gain  an 
audience,  and  his  message  of  the  new  way  of  life  was 
listened  to.  But  when  he  began  to  preach  that  the  Gentiles 
were  also  included — that  there  was  "neither  Jew  nor  Gen- 
tile," he  was  not  so  well  received  by  the  Jews,  for  their 
leader  had  crucified  the  Christ  he  upheld,  and  also  because 
he  broke  down  the  barrier  between  Jews  and  the  Gentiles. 
So  the  synagogue  was  closed  to  him  and  he  began  to  speak 
in  a  hired  hall.  He  also  undertook  to  evangelize  the  prov- 
inces by  means  of  his  trained  young  men,  whom  he  put  over 
the  seven  churches  of  Revelation.  Other  churches  he  kept 
up  to  the  mark  by  letters,  as  the  Corinthians,  going  to  the 

55 


very  heart  of  his  concepts  of  the  new  religion.  So  his  years 
were  very  busy  for  (i)  he  made  his  own  living  by  weaving 
goat  hair  cloth  for  tents,  (2)  he  was  pastor  of  a  great  city 
church,  (3)  he  was  also  advisory  pastor  of  the  provincial 
churches,  (4)  he  was  secretary  to  all  these.  All  this  he 
did  with  a  very  feeble  body.  At  this  time  nervous  diseases 
were  supposed  to  be  due  to  demons.  Jesus  Christ's  religion 
was  a  good  cure  for  this  and  Paul's  ability  to  do  so  much 
with  his  nerve-racked  body  proved  this,  "Paul  we  know  and 
Christ  we  know,"  so  he  began  to  have  a  good  deal  of  in- 
fluence among  the  Ephesians.  But  Tie  interfered  ^vith  their 
business,  for  the  making  of  images  to  Diana  was  one  of  the 
chief  commerces  of  Ephesus,  so  the  business  men  rose  up 
against  him.  Aristarchus  and  Gaius,  Paul's  lieutenants, 
were  captured  and  taken  to  the  theatre  whose  ruins  we  still 
see.  There  was  almost  a  riot,  but  the  city  clerk  quieted  it, 
and  had  the  men  taken  to  the  Roman  courts.  This  was  the 
beginning  of  opposition.  At  this  time  he  wrote  the  letter 
in  the  third  chapter  of  2  Corinthians,  to  the  Corinthians, 
the  best  and  strongest  of  all.  But  he  received  no  answer 
and  dispatched  Titus,  but  finally  went  himself  to  Macedonia, 
and  here  he  received  his  answer  to  come  to  them.  He 
answers  by  the  last  letter  of  second  Corinthians,  "Our  light 
afflictions  which  are  but  for  a  moment,  work  out  in  us  a 
far  greater  weight  of  glory." 

He  spent  the  winter  at  Corinth,  then  returned  to  Jeru- 
salem, on  the  way  making  his  last  visit  to  Ephesus,  also 
stopping  at  the  Island  of  Samos,  where  we  now  are;  then 
on  to  Melita,  where  he  gathered  the  elders  of  the  church  of 
Ephesus  and  gave  them  his  farewell  message ;  going  on  to 
Jerusalem,  where  the  charge  which  brought  his  mighty 
work  to  an  end  was  laid  against  him  by  Jews  from  Ephesus. 

The  ruins  at  Ephesus  are  in  a  very  poor  state  of  pres- 
ervation, and  only  interesting  in  an  archaeological  way  in 
showing  the  extent  of  the  city,  here  was  not  only  the  ruins 
of  magnificent  temples,  but  of  the  paved  streets  and  shops 
of  a  great  city,  the  stone  pavement  in  some  places  worn 
by  the  wheels  of  chariots.  Some  places  stand  out  above 
others,  the  amphitheatre  where  Paul  made  his  famous  de- 
fense, the  library,  and  the  small  amphitheatre  which  is  in 

56 


an  excellent  state  of  preservation,  etc.  The  temple  of  Diana, 
one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world  in  Paul's  time,  is 
now  represented  by  some  scattered  remnants  of  stone,  lying 
in  a  pond,  but  the  more  beautiful  carvings  in  white  marble 
have  been  taken  to  the  museums  of  Constantinople  where 
we  shall  see  them. 

Gathering  on  the  deck  of  the  steamer  as  we  neared 
Constantinople  we  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  Dr.  Bliss 
lecture  on  the  "Revolution  in  Turkey  and  Its  Effects."  He 
said  that  for  twenty  years  leaders  had  been  laying  plans 
for  the  revolution  which  took  place  in  July,  two  and  one- 
half  years  ago,  and  the  government  had  known  of  them, 
for  45,000  people  had  been  exiled  by  Abdul  Hamid  as  spies. 
The  Turkish  substitute  for  a  telegraph  and  telephone  was 
a  "tell-each-other  and  tell-it-all."  October  was  the  date 
set  but  the  plans  miscarried  and  the  revolution  came  in 
July.  The  Sultan  signed  the  constitution  on  being  told  that 
the  army  would  march  against  him,  and  it  was  confirmed 
before  the  foreign  embassies,  then  there  was  an  outbursting 
of  hysterical  joy  over  the  whole  empire,  for  their  oppression 
had  been  heavy.  When  Dr.  Bliss  came  here  ten  years  ago 
the  censor  took  away  his  geographies  and  Shakespeare 
because  they  told  of  kings  being  put  to  death.  An  engineer 
telegraphed  to  America  for  a  part  of  a  machine  that  should 
make  thirty-one  revolutions,  and  he  was  arrested,  for  one 
revolution  was  bad  enough,  but  thirty-one  unthinkable. 

Since  then  there  has  been  bitter  disappointment,  for 
Turks  cannot  appreciate  that  proper  freedom  cannot  be 
suddenly  realized  in  a  day,  but  must  be  worked  out  by  slow 
processes.  Christian  nations,  instead  of  helping,  have 
sneered  at  the  attempts  and  by  their  inclination  to  grab 
pieces  of  the  Turkish  empire  in  this,  her  time  of  need, 
made  it  necessary  for  Turkey  to  spend  in  armament  the 
money  she  ought  to  be  spending  on  education  and  improve- 
ment. Dr.  Bliss  was  born  here,  his  father  having  been 
founder  of  the  Syrian  Protestant  College,  and  he  has  great 
admiration  for,  and  confidence  in,  the  Turkish  people  and 
thinks  that  if  left  alone  now  or  assisted  a  little,  Turkey 
could  become  a  nation  worthy  to  stand  beside  other  Chris- 
tian nations. 


57 


April  20th 

Well,  here  we  are  at  last  in  Constantinople,  the  flower 
of  Turkey.  I  had  rather  hoped  a  quarantine  or  something 
might  happen  to  keep  us  away  from  here  for  I  thought 
I  would  not  care  to  see  it.  But  I  am  so  glad  we  came — we 
should  not  have  had  a  proper  conception  of  Turkey  if  we 
had  not.  We  have  seen  only  one  part,  the  tail-end  as  it 
were;  just  as  foreigners  might  judge  Americans  by  a  trip 
through  New  Mexico,  Utah  or  Milpitas.  But  when  one 
wishes  to  judge  America  they  go  to  her  great  centers  of 
commerce.  So  we  could  not  have  formed  a  fair  estimate  of 
Turkey  had  we  not  seen  her  greatest  city,  of  nearly  a  million 
inhabitants. 

Approaching  it  from  the  Bosphorus  by  steamer,  it  looks 
extremely  like  San  Francisco  or  New  York,  with  its  modern 
buildings,  apartment  houses,  docks,  etc.  Of  course,  on 
closer  inspection,  you  discover  some  characteristic  features, 
as  the  old  wall  built  by  Theodosius,  the  second,  430  A.  D., 
which  now  cuts  through  the  heart  of  the  city  and  follows 
the  sea  line;  also  the  numberless  minarets  and  domes  of 
mosques  begin  to  show  themselves  as  we  come  nearer.  Few 
people  know  that  this  city  was  started  by  Constantine  330 
A.  D.,  as  the  capital  of  Christianity  in  the  East  and  for  noo 
years  stood  as  a  Christian  city.  The  Emperor  built  the  first 
walls  but  in  less  than  100  years  they  were  outgrown  and 
Theodosius  built  new  ones,  which  were  destroyed  twenty 
years  later  by  earthquake,  just  as  an  invasion  of  the  Huns 
was  threatening,  so  thousands  of  men  were  put  to  work  and 
in  three  months  the  walls  were  rebuilt  and  withstood  the 
Hunnish  invasion.  Then  for  noo  years  these  walls  pro- 
tected Constantinople  from  flood  after  flood  of  barbarian 
invasion  and  the  Greek  civilization  and  Christian  religion 
were  here  preserved  during  the  dark  ages  in  Europe.  So 
we  have  these  impregnable  walls  to  thank  for  our  own 
Christianity  and  civilization.  We  walked  on  them  and  stood 
on  the  Golden  Gate,  through  which  Theodosius  came  in 
triumph  after  a  conquest.  Later  the  Turks  built  a  prison 
inside  this,  and  we  stood  in  the  great  round  tower,  which, 
it  is  said,  was  almost  filled  with  heads  at  some  of  the  Janis- 


58 


sary  massacres.  An  interesting  relic  is  the  Burnt  Column, 
still  standing,  erected  by  Constantine,  on  the  spot  where 
he  pitched  his  tent,  when  he  came  to  found  the  city.  It  was 
burned,  the  Turks  took  off  the  capitol  and  for  hundreds  of 
years  it  has  had  to  be  braced  with  iron  hoops  but  it  still 
stands.  In  530,  Justinian,  the  greatest  genius  of  Bysantine 
history,  built  the  New  Santa  Sophia  Church,  the  first  church 
dedicated  to  Christianity  in  the  Orient.  After  a  long  reign, 
a  rebellion  arose  in  his  kingdom  and  the  city  was  set  on  fire 
and  burned,  and  Justinian  was  forced  to  flee.  But  his 
beautiful  wife,  Theodora,  stood  by  him  and  persuaded  him 
to  return,  and,  with  a  few  faithful  soldiers,  he  overcame  the 
rebellion  and  gained  back  the  city.  In  honor  of  this  vic- 
tory, he  built  St.  Sophia  and  it  has  been  used  as  a  model  for 
Bysantium  church  architecture  ever  since.  It  is  in  the 
form  of  a  Maltese  cross,  with  a  great  dome  over  the  center, 
supported  by  four  enormous  stone  piers.  The  capitals  are 
very  beautiful  and  the  supporting  arches,  and  half  domes 
and  architraves  give  an  impression  of  grace  and  daintiness, 
which  we  have  not  hitherto  seen  in  Bysantium  architecture. 
The  great  dome  was  formerly  lined  with  gold  and  green 
mosaics,  in  the  making  of  which  these  people  were  adepts, 
and  it  must  have  been  gorgeous  in  the  days  of  its  magnifi- 
cence. The  forms  of  Christian  crosses  are  visible  yet  under 
the  paint  with  which  the  Moslems  have  tried  to  destroy  the 
signs  of  this  having  been  a  Christian  church.  There  were 
seven  doors  to  this  church  and  over  the  main  door  is  still 
a  carving  in  brass  of  an  open  book  on  which  is  written  in 
Greek,  "I  am  the  door,  by  me,  if  any  man  enter  in,  he  shall 
be  saved/'  Also  in  the  capitals  of  the  columns  are  medal- 
lions bearing  the  Greek  monogram  for  Christ.  To  counter- 
act this,  the  Moslems  have  spoiled  the  whole  effect  of  the 
interior  by  hanging  at  the  top  of  the  four  great  piers  an 
enormous  green  shield  with  gilt  inscriptions  of  the  name 
of  Mohammed.  These  are  simply  atrocious,  as  are  so  many 
of  the  modern  things  of  the  Moslems.  The  Mosque  of 
Suliman  the  Magnificent,  is  the  really  artistic  one,  and  the 
only  one  that  has  not  been  ruined  by  modern  alterations. 
It  is  decorated  and  finished  in  harmonious  tints  of  brown, 
without  any  of  the  glaring  atrocities  so  many  of  these 

59 


mosques  possess.  The  four  great  central  columns  were 
taken  from  the  great  Hippodrome  and  are  beautiful  in  red 
granite,  softened  and  browned  by  age.  From  them  we  can 
get  an  idea  of  what  the  Hippodrome  must  have  been  like. 
This  was  the  old  amusement  grounds  of  Constantine  and 
here  for  years  were  gathered  treasures  of  art  and  sculptor. 
It  was  a  great  amphitheatre  around  an  elliptical  colonnade 
where  the  chariot  races,  etc.,  were  held,  and  on  the  inside 
of  this  were  these  statues  and  works  of  art.  Here  one  of 
the  great  obelisks  from  Heliopolis  in  Egypt  was  brought 
and  this  is  one  of  the  things  still  standing  here.  When 
Justinian  was  ruler  and  returned  to  conquer  his  rebellious 
city,  his  soldiers  slew  40,000  people  in  this  same  Hippo- 
drome. But  it  flourished  in  all  its  beauty  until  the  time  of 
the  fourth  crusade  in  1204,  when  it  was  sacked  by  the  Cru- 
saders, and  its  marble  treasures  burned  for  lime.  The  whole 
city  of  Constantinople,  after  standing  for  noo  years,  at 
last  fell,  conquered  in  1453,  by  Mohammed  the  Conqueror. 
Then  followed  a  hundred  years  of  great  Sultans,  Suliman, 
Selim,  etc. 

Another  thing  built  by  Justinian  was  an  enormous  cis- 
tern, a  regular  underground  palace  with  hundreds  of  pillars 
with  carved  capitals.  This  place  is  395  feet  wide  and  600 
feet  long  and  still  contains  water. 

Another  interesting  place  here  is  the  museum.  This 
one  has  not  been  catalogued  and  developed  like  the  one  at 
Cairo,  but  it  is  immensely  worth  seeing.  The  Turkish  gov- 
ernment has  wakened  up  in  the  last  few  years  to  its  respon- 
sibility in  preserving  for  the  world  the  many  archaeological 
treasures  to  be  found  in  its  dominions  and  has  established  a 
bureau  with  museums  here  and  at  Cairo. 

Very  interesting  were  the  old  Herbert  tablets,  such  as 
the  Bible  was  written  on.  These  were  made  of  clay  and 
written  on  with  a  sharp  three-sided  instrument  called  the 
stylus.  Then  they  were  baked.  All  their  records  and  books 
were  made  this  way.  Then  for  fear  they  might  be  broken 
or  injured  a  second  layer  was  smeared  over  the  first  and 
the  same  record  written  thereon  so  this  could  be  cracked 
off  and  the  first  one  still  held  for  evidence.  Here  also  we 
saw  the  original  rolls  of  papyrus,  containing  the  mention  of 

60 


Nebuchadnazzar's  siege  of  Jerusalem,  Sennacharib,  620  B. 
C.  and  the  capture  of  Nineveh. 

The  most  interesting  features  are  the  sarcophagi. 

About  six  years  ago  a  peasant,  digging  in  his  garden, 
struck  a  subterranean  cavern,  and,  on  investigation,  it  was 
found  to  contain  some  fine  sarcophagi  and  from  this  begin- 
ning the  ruins  of  Sidon  were  uncovered.  So  these  are  called 
Sidon  sarcophagi.  One,  called  Alexander's,  is  the  most 
beautiful  in  existence.  It  is  a  block  of  solid  marble  carved 
into  the  shape  and  style  of  a  Greek  temple.  On  all  the  four 
sides  are  magnificent  carvings,  representing  on  one  side 
a  battle  scene,  with  Alexander  drawing  his  sword.  This  is 
the  most  lifelike  piece  of  sculpture  I  have  ever  seen.  We 
have  so  much  of  the  flesh-like  hue  of  the  Praxilites  Hermes 
in  Rome,  but  it  is  really  flesh-colored  by  a  wonderful 
process,  such  as  we  see  signs  of  yet  in  this  marble.  They 
covered  these  statues  when  finished  with  a  highly  colored 
wax,  then  heated  it  and  somewhat  of  the  color  of  the  wax 
soaked  into  the  marble.  So  on  these  sarcophagi  are  traces 
of  beautiful  color.  The  expression  of  tenseness  or  relaxa- 
tion of  muscles  such  as  would  be  demanded  by  the  action 
portrayed  is  something  wonderful.  The  appearance  of  dead- 
ness  in  the  dead  faces  of  the  detail  is  really  wonderful,  in 
fact,  all  this  work  must  have  been  done  by  a  master. 

The  pigeon  mosque  in  Constantinople  is  interesting  for 
the  way  it  got  its  name.  A  great  Sultan  was  going  to  build 
a  mosque  in  honor  of  one  of  his  victories  and  asked  the  peo- 
ple for  contributions.  A  poor  widow  brought  two  pigeons, 
all  she  had,  as  her  offering  and  the  Sultan  was  so  pleased 
that  he  decreed  that  this  should  be  called  the  Pigeon  Mosque 
and  that  the  descendants  of  these  birds  should  be  cared 
for  and  fed  here.  So  it  has  come  about  that  this  mosque 
has  become  just  a  large  pigeon-cote  and  people  go  to  see 
it  for  the  immense  number  of  pigeons,  rather  than  for  its 
beauty. 

One  afternoon  we  spent  at  Seraglio  Point,  the  harem 
of  the  Sultans  up  to  the  present  one.  Here  is  the  window 
in  the  wall  where  the  wives  of  the  Sultans  were  thrown  out 
when  old  and  useless.  (Mr.  B.  says  this  has  really  been 
done  up  to  the  present  time).  The  old  Sultan  was  allowed, 

61 


at  the  time  of  the  revolution,  to  retain  four  of  his  wives. 
The  present  one  had  four  when  he  came  to  power  and  has 
married  two  since — he  is  allowed  one  a  year. 

But  the  palace  to  which  we  went  is  now  occupied  by 
a  collection  of  Kings  treasures — the  richness  of  which  you 
could  hardly  believe.  One,  a  large  throne,  made  with  large 
seat  space,  so  the  ruler  can  sit  cross-legged,  was  captured 
from  a  Shah  of  Persia.  This  is  of  beaten  gold,  absolutely 
carved  with  settings  of  pearls,  emeralds  and  rubies,  in  de- 
sign of  wild  roses  and  leaves.  Over  the  seat  of  this  is  a 
beautiful  cushion,  embroidered  in  the  same  gems.  I  should 
say  any  one  of  the  pearls  was  worth  $100,000  and  there  are 
hundreds  of  them.  So  far  as  I  know,  the  value  of  any  of 
these  things  has  never  been  estimated.  But  here  in  this 
building  are  articles  of  every  description,  encrusted  in  this 
way — and  emeralds  actually  as  big  as  your  fist.  Swords, 
with  handles  set  with  enormous  diamonds,  bed  quilts  em- 
broidered in  pearls,  coats  of  mail  set  in  jewels,  manicure 
sets,  Korans  bound  in  diamonds,  rings,  watches,  clocks, 
orders  and  the  state  robes  of  all  the  Sultans  down  to  the 
present. 

I  must  not  forget  that  one  day  we  sat  in  a  drizzling 
rain  half-frozen  for  two  hours,  waiting  to  see  the  present 
Sultan  go  to  prayer  and,  after  it  all,  all  we  saw  was  a  de- 
crepit old  roue  of  about  sixty-five  with  white  hair  and  flabby 
face,  showing  plainly  the  effect  of  intemperance  of  life. 
Really  the  finest  thing  we  saw  was  the  magnificent  team 
of  Arabian  steeds,  hitched  to  his  carriage,  large,  perfect 
shaped  and  of  a  peculiar  color,  dappled  light  brown,  a  sort 
of  soft  nut  color. 

Every  Friday  the  Sultan  goes  about  500  feet  from  his 
palace  to  the  mosque  to  pray  and  Europeans,  with  a  per- 
mit, may  sit  in  carriages  along  this  drive  and  watch  him 
go  by.  The  greatest  part  of  the  show  is  the  pageantry  and 
preparations.  Batallions  of  soldiers,  gay  in  gold  lace  and 
flying  red  pennants,  march  up  and  down,  led  by  screaming 
brass  bands — the  Turkish  scale  seems  to  contain  about  three 
tones  and  their  idea  of  fineness  in  music  is  loudness.  Then 
troops  of  cavalry  come  with  their  beautiful  Arab  steeds  and 
station  themselves  all  along  the  way  at  intervals  of  about 

02 


six  feet  apart  and  facing  the  street.  Then  come  the  ambas- 
sadors and  their  wives  in  carriages,  and  finally  another  band 
and  cavalry — a  closed  carriage  or  two,  supposed  to  contain 
some  of  his  wives,  and  an  outrider  on  a  horse  matching  the 
Sultan's,  and  finally  a  beautiful  carriage  all  blue  and  gold, 
in  which  sits  in  solitary  grandeur  this  poor  belacekd,  be- 
jewled  sot,  who  cannot  say  for  one  moment  that  his  head 
is  his  own.  Mama  reminds  us  here  of  the  Bible  command : 
"When  ye  pray,  enter  into  your  closets  and  pray  in  secret, 
that  your  Father,  which  heareth  in  secret,  may  reward  you 
openly." 

Well,  this  is  a  great  people.  One  commentary  on  them 
is  their  fire  protection  system.  Scattered  around  the  city 
are  little  hand-worked,  hand-drawn  fire  engines.  When 
there  is  a  fire,  a  watchman  in  the  Galata  tower  blows  a  horn 
and  runs  up  various  colored  flags  to  show  where  the  fire 
is.  Then  the  nearest  engine  is  manned  by  volunteer  fire- 
men, who  proceeded  to  the  fire,  which,  of  course,  has  gained 
considerable  headway.  When  they  get  to  the  fire,  a  bar- 
gain must  be  struck  with  the  owner  of  the  building,  as  to 
how  much  he  will  pay  the  men  for  their  efforts,  and  the 
haggling  over  this  often  keeps  up  until  the  whole  building 
is  gutted. 

This  in  a  city  of  nearly  a  million  inhabitants,  32,000 
of  whom  are  Europeans.  Up  to  two  years  ago  the  scaven- 
gers of  the  city  were  the  dogs.  People  of  truthfulness 
tell  that  these  dogs,  by  some  understanding  among  them- 
selves, had  districts  into  which  dogs  of  another  district  were 
not  allowed  to  come.  If  they  did,  there  was  sure  to  be  a 
fight.  But  after  the  new  regime  45,000  of  these  dogs  were 
shipped  to  an  island  and  allowed  to  starve  to  death,  there 
being  a  law  in  the  Koran  against  killing  a  dog.  So  now  the 
notorious  dogs  of  Constantinople  are  no  more.  But  they 
still  have  the  howling  and  whirling  dervishes. 

We  were  fortunate  or  unfortunate  in  being  here  near 
Easter,  so  the  dervishes  which  are  a  form  of  monks  among 
the  Mohammedans,  were  more  than  usually  earnest  in  their 
fanaticisms.  I  have  not  put  through  very  many  evenings  in 
my  life  so  filled  with  horror,  yet  rather  laughable  when  we 
look  back  upon  it. 

63 


We  went,  accompanied  by  our  dragoman,  at  night, 
through  a  dark  forest  to  a  small  illy-lighted  house.  Here 
the  dervishes,  about  twenty  in  number,  were  just  beginning 
their  ceremonies.  Sitting  on  their  knees  and  feet  on  the 
floor,  they  were  quietly  chanting  responses  to  a  black- 
bearded  priest,  who  sat  in  the  Mecca  niche.  Soon,  though, 
they  began  to  get  a  little  more  vociferous ;  rocking  back  and 
forth  as  they  chanted  their  queer  monotonous  words.  Their 
movements  became  more  and  more  violent ;  their  heads  bob- 
bing around  as  their  bodies  swayed  back  and  forth,  until 
their  caps  fell  off  and  their  long  black  hair  fell  around  their 
faces.  For  at  least  half  an  hour  they  kept  this  up  without 
the  least  cessation,  their  movements,  if  anything,  becom- 
ing more  and  more  violent.  Finally  they  stopped  and  we 
supposed  the  performance  was  ended.  But  we  were  mis- 
taken— it  had  just  begun.  This  was  the  part  usually  shown 
to  tourists,  and  as  much  as  Mr.  B.  had  seen  in  his  seven 
years  here.  We  had  been  conducted  across  the  little  room 
and  were  sitting  where  we  could  not  get  out  without  going 
right  among  the  dervishes.  So  when  we  saw  there  was 
more  coming  we  decided  to  stay,  much  to  our  sorrow  after- 
wards. You  would  have  thought  the  men  would  have  been 
utterly  exhausted  but  now  they  stood  up  and  began  again, 
bending  backward  and  forward  from  the  waist  line.  None 
of  them  will  ever  die  of  liver  trouble  if  there  is  anything 
in  the  gymnastics  they  give  for  it.  It  must  have  been  for 
an  hour  at  least  that  they  kept  that  up,  uttering  a  peculiar, 
gutteral,  spirant  sound  all  the  time.  This  only  added  to  the 
uncanniness  of  what  was  going  on  in  the  meantime.  The 
priest  stripped  himself  to  the  waist  and  let  his  long  black 
hair  stream  down  over  his  shoulders.  Then  he  took  down 
a  sword  and  ran  his  finger  along  it  to  see  if  it  was  sharp, 
or  rather  I  think  to  see  that  it  was  not  sharp.  Then  he 
proceeded  to  stamp  around  and  beat  himself  over  the  head 
with  the  flat  side  of  the  sword,  but  very  carefully,  arranging 
his  hair  all  the  time  as  if  he  were  getting  ready  to  slash  his 
shoulders.  Then  they  brought  a  basin  and  set  it  before 
him,  as  he  knelt  on  the  floor  and  he  put  the  edge  of  the 
sword  across  his  abdomen,  leaned  over  it  and  appeared  to 
be  trying  to  cut  himself  open.  But  nothing  happened  and 

64 


no  blood  came.  Again  he  got  up  and  stamped  around  and 
again  he  leaned,  this  time  on  the  point  of  the  sword,  with 
the  basin  waiting  to  receive  the  blood.  Then  two  men 
took  him  and  held  him  by  arms  and  feet,  while  a  third  stood 
on  his  back,  his  heart  resting  on  the  point  of  the  sword,  of 
which  the  hilt  was  on  the  floor.  Imagine  our  horror  and 
repulsion,  for  none  could  tell  to  what  lengths  these  fren- 
zied men  might  go  and  we  could  not  get  out.  But  we 
might  have  saved  ourselves  fear,  for  the  old  priest.  He 
had  been  very  careful  not  to  work  himself  into  a  frenzy 
and  was  very  careful  not  to  hurt  himself.  But  now  he 
began  on  the  other  men.  He  took  one  fellow  from  among 
the  howling  dervishes  and  led  him  up  to  the  slaughter. 
He  took  a  thing  like  a  large  meat  skewer  and  slowly  forced 
it  through  the  man's  cheeks  and  this  time  there  was  no 
fooling  about  it.  Then  they  brought  the  poor  fellow  over 
to  a  post  right  beside  me  and  nailed  him  to  it  by  the 
cheek  and  he  stood  there  for  fully  five  minutes  or  more  be- 
fore they  took  him  away.  They  were  starting  to  fix  another 
man  and  we  women  were  about  to  faint  when  Mr.  B.  called 
one  of  the  men  to  him  and  told  him  we  would  have  to  go, 
so  they  managed  to  get  the  bobbling,  howling  men  far 
enough  from  the  rear  wall  so  that  we  could  squeeze  through 
and  get  out.  But  I  shall  never  forget  the  feel  of  one  of  the 
men's  sweaty  black  hair,  as  a  string  of  it  whisked  across  my 
face  and  you  may  be  sure  we  were  all  glad  to  get  out  to 
fresh  air  again.  They  say  they  continue  this  till  all  fall 
on  the  floor  in  a  heap,  from  absolute  exhaustion. 

After  this  experience,  you  may  judge  that  we  were  not 
elated  to  hear  the  next  day  that  we  were  to  visit  the  dancing 
dervishes,  but  we  were  assured  that  this  was  nice  and  so  it 
was  and  not  so  exciting.  The  dervishes  were  all  dressed  in 
green,  but  one  wore  white.  They  were  supposed  in  their 
dance  to  represent  the  stars  in  their  courses.  They  first 
have  a  very  stately  march  and  bowing,  they  begin  to  whirl, 
moving  around  slowly  in  a  circle  and  increasing  gradually 
the  speed  of  their  whirling,  their  green  skirts  standing  out 
like  so  many  umbrellas.  They  say  they  keep  this  up  for 
hours,  all  the  time  accompanied  by  a  weird  tune  on  pipes. 
On  Monday  afternoon,  April  23rd,  we  enjoyed  a  boat 

65 


ride  up  the  Bosphorus,  as  far  as  the  Black  Sea,  the  whole 
way  scenic  with  towering  mountains,  dotted  with  white 
villas  and  occasional  ruined  towers  and  castles.  The 
weather  here  has  been  the  only  thing  to  spoil  our  enjoy- 
ment of  Constantinople,  but  that  reminds  us  of  home,  for 
it  was  about  such  weather  as  we  were  having  when  we 
left  Berkeley. 

i(  We  sailed  April  25th  for  Piraeus,  the  port  of  Athens,  on 
the  line  steamer  Ismalia,  a  much  more  comfortable  boat 
than  we  have  been  on  before  in  the  Mediterranean.  Our 
ride  has  been  a  delightful  one  through  the  famous  routes 
and  scenes  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  which  tales  Mr. 
B.  told  us  as  we  went  along,  and  the  time  seemed  very 
short  until  we  sighted  Athens.  We  landed  at  Piraeus  and 
were  driven  over  a  beautiful  boulevard  the  four  miles  to 
Athens,  through  a  fertile,  smiling  country. 

Thing  of  it,  ye  folk  of  youthful  Berkeley,  we,  humble 
citizens  of  the  U.  S.  of  America,  are  going  to  sleep  tonight 
in  the  shadow  of  the  great  Parthenon,  3000  years  old,  and 
are  now  watching  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  Oriental 
sunset  play  upon  its  majestic  ruins  from  our  room  in  the 
hotel.  It  is  certainly  an  experience  never  to  be  forgotten. 
I  had  always  had  an  idea  that  the  Temple  of  Athena,  the 
Parthenon,  The  Odeon,  etc.,  were  scattered  about  the  city, 
but  I  was  mistaken,  for  here  on  the  small  top  or  slopes  of 
this  hill  is  about  everything  worth  seeing.  Only  the  The- 
sium,  the  temple  of  Zeus  and  the  Stadium  are  not  here.  So 
that  every  time  we  look  out  of  our  window  we  see  really 
the  whole  center  of  ancient  Greek  culture,  of  which  the 
real  beauty  and  aestheticism  cannot  be  realized  until  these 
ruins  are  comprehended.  All  of  Roman  art  and  architec- 
ture was  copied  from  this  and  lost  much  of  its  symmetry 
and  proportion  in  the  copying.  On  the  site  of  the  old  Sta- 
dium, half  a  mile  from  the  Acropolis,  a  Greek  millionaire 
has  erected  an  exact  copy  of  the  old  gaming-place,  holding 
50,000  people  and  beside  which  our  Greek  Theatre  at  Ber- 
keley sinks  into  insignificance.  Here  we  had  the  privilege 
of  watching  some  Greek  scholastic  games. 

Acropolis  means  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  this  particular 
one  is  a  rocky  peak  chosen  by  the  very  earliest  Greeks  for 

66 


a  residence  and  citadel,  because  of  the  ease  with  which 
it  could  be  defended.  Here  after  their  work  was  done  in 
the  surrounding  fields,  the  people  gathered  to  their  homes. 
So  naturally,  they  built  their  temple  here  also,  the  stones  of 
one  to  Athena  are  to  be  found  yet  in  the  foundations  of  the 
present  one.  But  the  Persians  besieged  it,  starved  out  the 
garrison,  and  destroyed  it.  When  Themistocles  saw  that 
the  city  must  be  given  over  to  the  Persians,  he  pursuaded 
the  Greeks  to  retire  to  the  Island  of  Salamis,  and  meet  the 
Persians  there  with  their  navy  which  surpassed  that  of 
the  Persians.  Accordingly  the  battle  of  Salamis  was  fought, 
ending  in  the  complete  rout  of  the  Persians,  and  the  Greeks 
came  back  and  rebuilt  their  city.  Gradually  they  acquired 
power  and  with  prosperity  took  their  place  as  a  center  of 
culture,  in  art,  literature,  and  philosophy.  Plans  were 
made  for  a  great  Parthenon  but  were  abandoned,  after  a  par- 
tial preparation  of  the  stone,  some  of  which  we  still  find  in 
the  walls  of  other  buildings  here.  But  in  the  time  of  Peri- 
cles, Phidias  was  hired  as  chief  architect  and  sculptor  and 
the  present  Parthenon  built.  Strange  to  say  none  of 
Phidias'  sculpture  has  survived,  yet  we  know  from  this 
great  monument  that  he  was  a  consummate  artist.  The 
proportions  of  beauty  have  been  carefully  figured  out  and 
I  never  saw  anything  which  for  pure  symmetry  was  so 
beautiful.  The  floor  space  is  in  the  proportion  of  nine  to 
four,  the  columns  eighteen  times  higher  than  their  diameter. 
Doric  columns  have  never  been  attractive  to  me,  and  the 
Roman  ones  look  squatty  and  mashed  out  at  the  capitol  as 
if  too  heavy  a  weight  had  been  placed  upon  them,  but  when 
I  saw  those  in  the  Parthenon,  made  in  the  proper  propor- 
tions, and  the  cushion  at  the  top  not  so  angular,  they  be- 
came my  favorite.  They  have  no  base  and  only  a  cushion 
at  the  top,  and  are  grooved,  with  a  flat  surface  between  the 
grooves.  Made  this  way  and  slightly  smaller  at  the  top 
than  at  the  bottom,  they  have  a  dignity  and  stability  about 
them  that  would  be  lost  with  more  ornamentation. 

The  queerest  thing  about  this  building  is  that  there  is 
not  a  straight  line  about  it,  although  this  is  not  noticeable 
unless  your  attention  is  called  to  it.  The  stylobat  or  foun- 
dation of  three  stairs  on  which  the  temple  rests  is  curved 

67 


four  inches  in  its  length  of  one  hundred  feet,  the  columns 
lean  in  three  inches  at  the  top  and  this  slight  variation 
keeps  the  colonnade  from  having  the  appearance  of  spread- 
ing at  the  top.  All  this  must  have  been  figured  out,  and  the 
result  of  careful  experiment.  Of  course,  its  crowning  glory 
was  the  sculpture,  of  which  little  is  left,  and  that  is  in  the 
British  museum,  but  copies  of  it  are  in  the  museum  here 
on  the  Acropolis.  It  was  all  of  white  marble,  and  with 
the  figures  in  place  on  the  pediment,  friezes  and  metopes,  the 
Parthenon  must  indeed  have  been  the  most  beautiful  temple 
of  ancient  times.  The  motto  of  the  Greeks  was  to  build 
perfectly,  not  large,  and  each  of  these  stones  were  ground 
against  the  other  until  they  made  a  perfect  joint,  one  of 
which  has  remained  through  all  these  years.  The  whole 
Parthenon  stood  in  an  excellent  state  of  preservation  until 
1636,  at  which  time,  while  being  used  as  a  magazine  by  the 
Turks,  it  was  wrecked  by  an  explosion.  Another  of  the 
gems  of  the  Acropolis,  the  Nike  Apteros  temple  commemo- 
rating the  victories  of  Marathon,  Salamis  and  Platea,  was 
torn  down  by  the  Turks,  and  built  into  the  walls  of  the 
Turkish  bastion.  But  some  seventy-five  years  ago,  some 
Germans  dug  out  the  stones  and  restored  them  as  nearly 
as  they  could  according  to  the  former  plans,  so  that  today 
we  see  a  fairly  accurate  restoration  of  it. 

Another  beautiful  temple  on  this  same  hill  is  the  Thes- 
eum,  of  which  the  most  famous  part  was  the  Caryatid 
porch.  The  perfection  of  Greek  art  is  well  exemplified  in 
this.  For  some  reason  it  was  desirable  to  have  women  sup- 
porting the  roof  of  this  porch,  instead  of  the  ordinary  col- 
umn, but  it  would  be  tiresome  to  the  beholder,  and  there- 
fore inartistic,  if  the  women  looked  as  if  the  weight  were 
too  much  for  them.  So  they  must  be  given  an  appearance 
of  ease,  and  to  do  this  the  artist  has  represented  them  as 
resting  slightly  on  one  foot.  But  if  all  six  rested  on  the  same 
foot  it  would  give  an  optical  delusion  of  leaning,  so  those 
on  the  right  are  resting  on  the  right  foot,  those  on  the  left 
side  on  the  left  foot,  so  that  the  appearance  of  restfulness 
as  well  as  erectness  is  preserved.  On  the  other  side  of  this 
temple  is  a  doorway  so  beautiful  that  it  has  been  used  as 
a  model  ever  since,  in  fact  the  moulding  was  just  like  the 


chain  moulding  between  the  panels  of  the  dining  room 
at  home. 

The  entrance  to  the  Acropolis  is  made  through  the 
Prophylea,  which  was  built  437  B.  C.  by  the  architect 
Mnesicles,  but  it  has  never  been  entirely  finished  as  it  en- 
croached on  the  Nike  Apteros  temple.  This  is  little  more 
than  an  elaborate  colonnade  of  Doric  columns,  with  a  sep- 
arating wall  in  which  is  a  massive  doorway,  and  has  one 
complete  wing,  which  was  used  in  Grecian  times  as  a  pic- 
ture gallery.  On  the  Acropolis  we  have  examples  of  three 
kinds  of  Grecian  columns  at  their  best,  the  Prophylea  has 
Doris;  the  Parthenon,  Ionic;  the  Theseum,  Corinthian. 
These  were  put  together  in  great  sections  and  the  fluting 
done  afterward,  then  all  the  polishing  done  after  the  whole 
temple  was  completed.  The  Acropolis  museum  is  inter- 
esting, still  it  seems  a  shame  that  so  much  of  the  really  fine 
work  should  have  been  taken  away,  for  here  almost  the 
only  original  work  on  exhibition  is  some  of  the  stones  made 
for  the  first  Parthenon,  which,  when  they  were  not  used, 
were  thrown  into  the  debris  used  to  fill  out  the  retaining 
wall  by  which  the  area  of  the  top  of  the  hill  was  increased. 
Later  they  were  discovered,  dug  up  and  placed  here. 

The  pediment  of  the  Parthenon,  which  was  the  mas- 
terpiece of  Phidias,  has  only  small  remnants  left,  but  a 
diagram  and  picture  has  been  made  from  the  fragments, 
so  we  can  tell  what  it  was  like.  It  was  quite  a  problem  to 
put  into  this  triangular  space  a  group  of  statuary  that  would 
properly  fill  it.  On  the  east  end,  Phidias  put  a  portrayal 
of  the  birth  of  Athens,  the  patron  goddess  of  Athens.  She 
was  supposed  to  have  sprung  full  grown  from  the  head  of 
Zeus  when  Triton  struck  it  with  his  staff.  Athena  is  stand- 
ing, full-panoplied,  in  the  middle  of  the  pediment,  a  ma- 
jestic figure,  and  Zeus,  awe-struck  sitting  on  her  right  side, 
while  Triton  on  the  other  side  is  in  a  half  crouching  posi- 
tion of  amazement;  beyond  him  is  Hermes,  just  starting 
to  carry  the  news  of  the  birth  to  the  world.  He  marks  a 
transition,  for  the  rest  of  the  figures  must  of  necessity 
be  smaller  and  as  humans  are  smaller  than  gods,  the  re- 
mainder of  the  space  is  used  to  show  how  the  news  was  re- 
ceived on  the  earth.  At  the  other  end  are  the  people  of  the 

69 


earth  as  they  were  acting  in  the  morning  before  they  heard 
the  news.  At  the  very  first  is  a  representation  of  the  sun 
starting  out  in  his  chariot  according  to  the  Greek  concep- 
tion. Even  in  cold  marble  the  morning  vim  and  fresh- 
ness are  plainly  visible  in  both  driver  and  horses.  Some- 
thing in  the  position  of  the  arms  of  the  charioteer  seems  to 
say  to  the  prancing  horses,  "Go  on,  go  just  as  fast  as  you 
can,  but  I  shall  always  have  control  of  you."  At  the  other 
end,  the  day's  work  is  done,  and,  while  there  is  no  appear- 
ance of  weakness,  there  is  relaxation  and  lassitude  in  nostril 
and  the  whole  general  appearance.  Some  of  these  horses' 
heads  are  still  here  and  are  wonderful.  You  really  appre- 
ciate Greek  art  after  you  see  it  here,  and  after  you  have 
compared  it  with  its  successors.  At  Corinth,  where  we  saw 
the  ruins  of  a  Roman  temple,  the  figures  seemed  much 
coarser  and  more  plebeian.  One  peculiar  thing  we  have 
learned  about  Greek  art :  At  the  time  of  Themistocles  and 
Phidias,  the  Greeks  were  at  their  best  as  regards  vigor,  har- 
dihood and  virtue,  and  at  this  time  we  have  the  best  sculp- 
ture. The  ideal  for  men  was  strength ;  for  women,  virtue ; 
so  the  male  figure  was  portrayed  nude,  showing  the  free 
play  of  the  muscles,  while  the  women  were  shown  in  simple 
draperies.  But  at  the  time  of  Pisistrates  the  state  had  been 
enriched,  and  all  the  vices  that  come  with  prosperity  had 
fastened  themselves  on  the  people.  In  this  period  we  find 
nude  women  but  the  men  are  draped  in  gowns  of  varying 
degrees  of  richness,  showing  the  deterioration  of  ideals. 

On  the  side  of  the  Acropolis  hill  is  the  Theatre  of 
Dyonysius,  and  the  Odeon ;  in  the  first,  the  earliest  Greek 
plays  were  performed;  in  the  second,  the  musical  concerts 
were  given.  Greece  often  had  festivals  in  which  rich  men 
contended  for  prizes  for  the  most  successful  dramas.  They 
searched  for  geniuses  who  could  write,  supported  them 
while  they  worked  and  staged  their  productions  in  the  finest 
style.  The  one  who  thus  put  on  the  best  play  was  given  a 
tripod  and  laurel  wreath,  which  they  displayed  on  Corregios 
or  monuments,  built  by  the  victor  for  the  purpose,  and  some 
are  still  to  be  seen  scattered  about  the  city  in  various  places. 

On  one  afternoon  we  drove  to  Eluesis,  where  the  ruins 
of  another  Greek  temple  are,  a  beautiful  drive  in  an  ideal 

70 


spring  day  along  the  shores  of  blue  Eluesis  Bay.  Athens 
and  Greece  were  certainly  delightful,  but  homesickness  was 
upon  us  and  we  were  glad  to  sail  from  Patras  for  Brindisi, 
stopping  on  the  way  for  a  drive  on  the  island  of  Corfu. 
We  arrived  at  Brindisi  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning 
and  were  called  immediately  to  go  ashore.  Here  our  party 
broke  up,  for  the  regular  tour  ends  at  Naples,  but  only  two 
went  on  to  Naples,  the  others  scattering  to  various  parts  of 
Europe.  We  consider  ourselves  very  fortunate  in  having 
Mr.  Bailey  so  arrange  his  homeward  journey  that  he  can 
take  us  through  Europe,  the  party  now  consisting  of  the 
Naylors,  Mrs.  Sevier,  Mr.  Bailey,  and  his  eleven-year-old 
son,  Charles.  Starting  early  in  the  morning,  we  traveled 
all  day  "  'neath  blue  Italian  skies,"  only  they  did  not  hap- 
pen to  be  blue,  as  it  rained  all  day.  But  Italy  is  certainly 
a  delightful  country,  almost  every  hill-top  crowned  with  a 
ruined  tower,  and  as  a  frequent  background  for  these,  snow- 
clad  mountains;  as  a  foreground,  green  fields  and  orchards 
and  pastures  dotted  with  sheep.  There  is  very  little  ground 
not  used  in  some  way,  though  most  of  the  way  we  traveled 
was  through  the  Appennine  mountains.  Finally  we  rounded 
a  curve  suddenly  and  beheld  the  lights  of  Rome,  and  here 
we  were  in  a  real  European  city  again  and  in  a  real  Euro- 
pean hotel,  the  Michel. 

It  is  almost  useless  to  attempt  to  write  a  diary  of  Rome, 
I  think  a  catalogue  of  the  things  we  saw  is  about  the  best 
I  can  do,  and  they  are  so  well  known  that  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  describe  them.  First  was  the  Forum,  the  an- 
cient Senate  chamber  of  the  Romans,  where  the  citizens 
came  to  listen  to  such  orators  as  Brutus,  Mark  Antony  and 
others.  Here  also  is  the  tomb  of  Romulus,  and  the  halls 
of  the  Vestal  Virgins.  Each  of  these  virgins,  who  took  the 
veil  at  nine  years  of  age  or  more,  and  could  not  marry  until 
they  were  past  forty-five  years  of  age,  had  a  room  here  by 
the  Forum  and  the  remains  show  them  to  have  been  dainty 
and  fine ;  after  all  these  2000  years  one  dainty  little  tracery 
of  a  vine  is  left  on  a  broken  wall.  Here,  too,  was  the 
Coliseum  where » the  great  spectacles  were  held,  and  where 
many  Christians  were  fed  to  the  lions  in  the  time  of  Nero, 
where  sometimes  they  filled  the  great  arena  with  water 


and  had  great  maritime  battles  with  triremes.  Then  we 
went  to  the  adjacent  Mamertine  prisons  where  Peter  was 
supposed  to  have  been  confined,  and  to  have  converted  the 
jailor.  This  was  a  dark,  damp  cavern  in  the  rock,  now 
decorated  with  a  gaudy  shrine  and  a  hole  in  the  floor  leads 
down  to  another  cave,  into  which  prisoners  were  lowered 
by  a  rope,  and  were  kept  there  until  they  died,  which  could 
not  have  been  very  long. 

%^  Rome  is  justly  famous  for  its  fine  churches,  many  of 
them  were  decorated  by  famous  painters  and  contain  some 
masterpieces.  In  the  Church  of  Saint  Peter  in  Chains  is 
the  famous  statue  of  Moses.  One  cannot  realize  until  they 
see  these  masterpieces,  just  why  they  should  be  so  famous, 
for  copies  of  them  give  but  a  poor  idea  of  the  majesty 
of  them  and  the  great  ideals  which  they  express.  I  have 
always  thought  that  I  should  like  to  see  these  just  because 
they  were  famous,  and  because  of  lack  of  any  special  knowl- 
edge of  the  technique  of  art  should  not  be  able  to  appreciate 
their  artistic  value.  But  it  does  not  take  an  experienced  art 
critic  to  appreciate  the  rare  ability  that  created  Moses  or 
the  Apollo  Belvidere,  or  Venus,  or  the  Winged  Victory. 
When  you  look  on  the  statue  of  Moses  you  cannot  but  feel 
in  your  innermost  soul,  his  righteous  indignation  as  he  came 
down  from  the  mount  and  found  the  people  worshipping  the 
golden  calf.  There  is  no  ungovernerable  anger  in  the  face, 
every  line  is  that  of  a  strong,  self-controlled  man,  such  as 
the  leader  of  a  contrary  people  must  have  been,  a  very  rug- 
ged face  and  figure,  the  left  foot  drawn  back  as  if  the  reso- 
lution expressed  in  the  face  was  already  being  put  into  ac- 
tion. The  best  known  of  Rome's  churches  is  Saint 
Peter's,  but  it  was  a  disappointment  to  me  in  every  particu- 
lar except  size.  The  great  dome  faced  with  mosaic  repro- 
duction of  famous  pictures  was  particularly  striking,  but 
the  general  effect  of  the  whole  was  spoiled  by  the 
gaudy  black  and  gilt  sacristy  that  stands  at  the  intersec- 
tion of  the  nave  and  transcript.  Without  this  the  effect 
of  purity  and  sanctity  given  by  the  vari-colored  marbles 
would  be  very  much  heightened,  in  my  humble  opinion. 
Among  the  many  interesting  statues  here  is  one  in  bronze 
of  St.  Peter  which  actually  has  the  great  toe  kissed  away 

72 


by  pilgrims  who  have  worshipped  before  it.  From  this 
church  we  went  to  the  Vatican  art  galleries,  part  of  the 
ramshackle  old  structure  that  is  the  home  and  voluntary 
prison  of  the  Pope,  for  he  never  leaves  it.  Some  idea  of 
the  size  of  it  may  be  gained  from  the  fact  that  we  had  to 
take  carriages  to  get  from  St.  Peter's,  on  one  side  of  the 
Vatican,  to  the  entrance  of  the  art  gallery  on  the  other. 
Once  inside  the  gallery  you  may  walk  miles,  nine,  I  be- 
lieve it  is,  through  rows  of  pictures,  statues  and  tapestries, 
of  which  the  best  are  the  Apollo  Belvidere,  Venus,  the  Dis- 
cus Thrower,  the  double  statue  of  the  Boxers,  and  the 
Raphael  tapestries.  The  finest  work  is  in  the  Sistine 
Chapel,  where  is  practically  all  that  remains  of  the  paintings 
of  Michael  Angelo ;  the  Last  Judgment,  on  the  wall  of  this 
chapel  being  his  masterpiece.  The  pictures  are  very  much 
obscured  by  time  and  the  light  is  very  poor,  but  enough 
is  left  to  show  that  here  was  really  a  masterpiece  of  con- 
ception and  execution.  Angelo  began  this  when  he  was 
sixty  years  old,  and  completed  it  in  seven  years.  The  pic- 
tures on  the  ceiling  represent  the  creation  of  the  world. 

The  church  that  best  suits  my  taste  was  the  Church  of 
St.  Peter  Without  the  Walls.  The  panels  of  every  different 
variety  of  fine  stone  and  marble,  the  columns  of  white  gran- 
ite from  the  Alps,  and  of  alabaster  softened  with  age  give  an 
air  of  quiet  dignity  and  simple  elegance  that  is  ideal.  And 
the  Sacristy  here  is  a  work  of  art  and  not  a  freak  as  is 
the  one  in  St.  Peter's.  One  of  the  oldest  and  most  aristo- 
cratic churches  was  that  of  St.  John,  Lateran,  which  was 
the  favorite  of  Pope  Leo  XIII.  He  spent  a  great  deal  of 
money  in  beautifying  it,  and  had  a  fine  mausoleum  for  him- 
self placed  here,  but  owing  to  some  hitch  in  the  red  tape 
of  the  government,  his  body  has  not  yet  been  placed  in  it 
Two  old  brass  doors  here  are  famous  for  the  chord  they 
make  when  swinging  on  their  hinges,  the  tone  at  starting 
being  just  one  octave  lower  than  the  one  at  ending.  Two 
days  were  all  too  short  to  see  anything  of  Rome  and  our 
glimpse  only  made  us  more  determined  to  come  again. 

From  Rome  to  Paris  we  traveled  only  by  day  so  that 
we  got  to  see  the  country  as  we  passed  through,  stopping 
for  the  first  night  at  Genoa,  the  second  at  Lausanne,  in  the 


Swiss  Alps.  The  first  day  we  followed  the  shores  of  the 
Mediterranean,  seeing  in  the  distance  the  Island  of  Elba, 
also  the  leaning  tower  of  Pisa;  on  the  second  we  reached 
the  Alps,  and  traveled  all  day  through  the  most  beautiful 
scenery  we  had  ever  seen.  All  along  on  our  journey  we 
loyal  Californians  had  insisted  that  everything  we  saw  was 
"just  like  California,"  or  "not  nearly  as  nice,"  until  I  think 
everybody  in  the  crowd  were  tired  of  hearing  it,  but  here 
we  were  silent.  The  beauty  of  the  snow-clad  mountains  in 
such  rugged  fantastic  shapes,  the  green  fertile  valleys,  the 
innumerable  dashing  ribbons  of  cataracts,  why  should  I 
try  to  describe  them,  when  people  of  ten  times  my  descript- 
ive abilities  have  failed.  One  of  the  chief  attractions  was 
variety ;  for  every  glimpse  was  different ;  here  the  sun  mak- 
ing glistening  gold  of  the  snow,  here  the  blue  shadow  of  the 
pines  on  dashing  spray.  We  stopped  for  the  night  at 
Lausanne,  on  Lake  Geneva,  after  passing  through  the 
famous  Simplon  Pass,  and  saw  the  sun  set  golden  over  the 
distant  snowy  peaks,  leaving  the  Castle  of  Chillon  gray 
against  the  blue  waters  of  the  lake  as  we  looked  from  our 
balcony  windows.  Here,  more  than  any  other  place  we 
have  been,  we  should  have  loved  to  tarry,  and  if  we  should 
ever  cross  the  ocean  again  a  long  stay  here  would  certainly 
be  arranged  in  our  itinerary. 

V  Taking  the  train  early  the  next  morning  we  were  soon 
by  means  of  an  endless  number  of  tunnels,  carried  out  of 
this  beautiful,  clean,  thrifty,  Swiss  country,  into  France, 
just  as  clean  and  thrifty  but  more  monotonous,  because  it 
is  mostly  level  in  this  part.  But  early  in  the  afternoon  we 
arrive  at  Paris,  and  there  is  certainly  nothing  monotonous 
there.  Even  for  us  staid  Quakers  it  had  a  glamour  of  life 
and  gaiety.  We  cannot  say,  however,  that  we  enjoyed 
our  "high  life  in  Paris."  (We  had  rooms  on  the  top  floor 
of  a  six-story  hotel  and  there  was  no  elevator).  We  hired 
an  automobile  one  afternoon  and  took  a  ride  out  to  the 
Champs  Elysses  while  the  elite  were  on  parade  and  saw 
the  latest  style  in  everything  from  dogs  to  tube  skirts  so 
tight  that  they  had  to  be  laced  out  at  the  bottom  to  allow 
the  wearer  to  step.  At  the  end  of  this  drive  is  the  Boise  de 
Boulogne,  which  is  just  a  great  grove  of  trees  preserved 

74 


in  its  natural  state  for  the  use  of  the  Parisians,  and  with 
its  countless  acres  and  long  vistas  of  woodland  it  makes 
a  paradise  for  automobilists,  bicyclists,  pedestrians,  and 
particularly  for  the  children  of  the  rich  who  come  here  in 
great  numbers  with  their  nurse  maids. 

The  great  thing  to  see  in  Paris  is  the  Louvre,  of  course, 
though  we  took  a  cursory  glance  at  the  churches  of  St. 
Maggoire,  of  St.  Saens  Chappelle,  and  Notre  Dame,  see- 
ing here  the  old  crown  gems  and  robes  of  state  of  Napoleon 
and  of  many  other  famous  kings  of  France.  At  the  Louvre 
one  could  spend  days  browsing  among  such  masters  as  Fra 
Angelico,  Andrea  Del  Sarto,  Murillo,  Rembrandt,  Rubens, 
Millet  and  others.  My  favorite  was  Murillo's  Immaculate 
Conception,  the  Holy  Family  and  Mona  Lisa  by  Leonardo 
da  Vinci.  This  last  I  have  never  been  able  to  appreciate 
from  the  copies  I  have  seen,  and  for  my  own  part  would 
never  try  to  make  anyone  who  had  not  seen  the  original 
appreciate  it,  for  in  all  the  copies  the  sweet  smile  on  the 
face  becomes  a  grin ;  but  there  is  an  ineffable  sweetness  and 
depth  of  character  about  the  whole  face  that  is  lost  in 
anything  but  the  original.  While  this  was  painted  as  a  por- 
trait it  is  nevertheless  the  embodiment  of  the  artists's  ideal 
woman,  not  so  much  as  to  physical  beauty  as  to  beauty  of 
character.  The  "Marriage  at  Cana"  was  interesting  because 
in  it  the  artist  had  introduced  the  faces  of  many  prominent 
people,  as  artists  often  did  in  the  time  of  Raphael.  Paul 
Veronese  has  here  painted  Eleanor  of  Austria  as  the  Bride, 
next  to  her  is  Francis  I,  on  the  other  Mary  of  England,  Sul- 
tan Suliman,  Emperor  Charles  V,  and  Titian  in  the  orchestra 
is  playing  the  bass-viol.  One  of  the  sweet  mother-pictures 
was  that  of  Madame  Le  Brun  and  her  daughter,  painted  by 
herself.  The  Winged  Victory  of  Samathrace  is  by  far  the 
most  impressive  piece  of  sculpture  here — a  headless  figure 
on  the  prow  of  a  trireme.  There  is  something  in  the  whole 
pose  of  the  figure  and  the  ease  of  the  flying  draperies  that 
inspires  a  feeling  of  conquest  and  buoyant  progress.  An- 
other of  the  treasures  of  the  Louvre  is  the  Venus  de  Milo. 
In  the  Luxumbourg  gallery  was  a  fine  statue  of  St.  John, 
also  one  litle  piece  of  statuary  by  Theodore  Riviere,  prac- 
tically unknown  to  fame,  but  very  attractive  to  me  in  its 


conception.  It  was  called  Aspiration.  A  middle-aged  man 
has  just  pulled  himself  up  to  where  he  can  look  over  the 
edge  of  a  precipice  up  which  he  has  been  laboriously  climb- 
ing, and  what  he  sees  is  a  skeleton  representing  death. 

Then  we  saw  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  many  of  the 
spots  made  famous  in  the  terrible  days  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution, and  the  beautiful  red-granite  tomb  of  Napoleon.  We 
were  sorry  our  time  was  so  limited,  but  necessity  compelled 
us  to  take  up  our  march  to  London,  going  by  the  way  of 
Calais  by  train  and  then  across  the  Channel  to  Dover.  For 
a  wonder  the  Channel  was  smooth  and  Papa  had  no  ex- 
cuse for  getting  sick,  and  as  the  passage  here  is  only  two 
hours  we  managed  to  get  safely  across.  Then  we  took  train 
at  Dover,  and  went  through  the  close-clipped,  box-hedged 
meadows  of  England  to  smoky  London,  too  big  to  cover  in 
three  years,  and  we  had  but  three  days.  But  thanks  to  the 
speed  of  autos  we  were  able  to  see  a  good  many  things,  and 
we  got  a  good  view  of  the  general  life  of  the  town  by  rid- 
ing from  one  place  to  another  on  the  tops  of  the  busses 
which  takes  the  place  of  our  electric  cars.  Westminster 
Abbey  was  closed  to  visitors  as  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
decorators  who  were  arranging  it  for  the  Coronation,  but 
we  got  to  hear  the  famous  boys'  choir  in  St.  Paul's  church. 
One  afternoon  in  an  auto  we  covered  twenty-one  miles  and 
saw  the  following  things : 

1.  The  Tiber  Gallows. 

2.  Hyde  Park. 

3.  Albert  Memorial  and  Monument. 

4.  Kensington  Museum. 

5.  Albert  Museum. 

6.  The  Royal   Mews. 

7.  Billingsgate. 

8.  Parliament  Houses. 

9.  Westminster  Abbey. 

10.  Westminster  Bridge. 

11.  Spurgeon's   Church. 

12.  The  Tabard  Inn. 

13.  London  Bridge. 

14.  The  Tower  Bridge. 

15.  Tower  of  London. 

76 


16.  Church  where  William  Penn  was  baptised. 

17.  Church  where  John  Harvard  was  baptised. 

18.  Church  where  John  Milton  was  baptised. 

19.  Bunhill  Fields  Cemetery,  inclosing  the  tombs  of 
Isaac   Watts,    John    Bunyan,    Susanne    Wesley, 
Daniel  DeFoe  and  George  Fox. 

20.  The  Wesley  Chapel. 

21.  St.  James  Palace. 

22.  Marlborough  House. 

23.  Pall  Mall. 

24.  Lambert  Palace. 

25.  Monument  marking  origin  of  the  great  fire. 

26.  Bank  of  England. 

27.  Mansion  House. 

28.  Mint. 

29.  Old  London  Walls. 

30.  Charter  House. 

31.  The  burial  place  of  John  Smith. 

32.  Smithfield. 

33.  St.  Bartholomew's  Church. 

In  the  Bunhills  Fields  Cemetery  we  saw  many  queer 
and  interesting  inscriptions  on  the  old  tombstones  but  the 
queerest  was  one  which  bore  the  name  of  a  woman  and 
this  touching  obituary : 

"In  67  months  tapped  66  times  and  there  were  taken 
from  her  240  gallons  of  water  without  ever  once  complain- 
ing of  her  sad  lot  or  fearing  the  operation." 

On  the  I4th  of  May  we  boarded  the  Liverpool  Express 
and  were  whisked  away  to  catch  the  Mauretania,  and  in  six 
hours  were  actually  starting  for  home.  How  different  were 
our  sensations  than  when  we  left  home  shores;  the  gen- 
eral scenes  were  the  same;  the  same  rush  of  baggage  men 
and  officers;  the  same  signals;  the  same  thunderous  "All 
visitors  ashore ;"  the  same  procession  down  the  gang-plank, 
some  weeping,  some  joyous,  but  not  the  same  impulse  on 
our  part  to  rush  down  the  gang-plank  before  it  was  pulled 
up.  Oh,  no !  We  were  going  home.  But  this  is  home  to 
many  and  there  is  the  old  grandfather  waving  farewell  to 
a  departing  son  and  family  he  will  probably  never  see  again, 
waving  with  one  hand  and  wiping  away  the  tears  with  the 

77 


other.  Beside  him  a  woman  stands  with  head  bowed  on 
the  rail  unable  to  take  the  last  look;  here  a  brave  young 
mother,  with  babe  on  her  shoulder  and  hope  in  her  face, 
bidding  good-bye  to  the  father,  going  to  carve  out  a  home 
for  his  little  family  in  the  foreign  land;  here  the  wives  of 
the  ship's  employees,  waving  good-bye  with  the  stolidity 
of  long  experience.  So  it  goes,  joy  for  some,  sorrow  for 
others.  After  all  what  have  we  really  seen  of  the  life  of  the 
people  of  the  world?  All  these  temples,  pictures,  etc.,  are 
only  the  expression  of  the  highest  life  of  the  people,  we 
have  lived  for  four  months  only  on  the  sunny  side  of  life 
but  there  was  much  of  misery  and  of  sin  and  suffering  we 
saw,  and  much  more  that  we  did  not  see.  But  there  is  much 
of  it  at  home ;  a  poor  old  woman  lying  in  dirt  and  neglect  in 
Samaria,  a  neglected  boy  dying  in  Tiberias,  a  blind,  diseased 
beggar  girl  in  Jerusalem,  just  such  pitiful  things  can  be 
found  in  our  own  enlightened  country  and  we  are  begin- 
ning to  feel  after  our  long  vacation  that  we  too  must  take 
up  again  our  duties  in  life  and  bear  as  best  we  may  not  only 
our  own  burdens  but  the  burdens  of  those  who  have  fallen 
by  the  roadside. 


78 


PRESS    OF     LACK     BROS. 
BERKELEY.  CALIFORNIA 


UNIVERSITY  OP  CALIFORNIA  LIBBAEY, 
BEEKELEY 


Books  not  returned  on  time  are 
c     er  volume  after  the  third  day 


g 

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^rat^Jo^period. 

9  1S2£ 
JAN  681930 


